
Book. '? c V 

Copyright ]«1? 



COPyRIGHT DEPOStR 



ELEMENTS OF 
RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 



A Course in 
Sunday School Teacher-Training 

By 

FRED LEWIS PATTEE 



Professor of the English Language and 
Literature in the Pennsylvania State College 



Approved as an Advanced Standard Course by the Committee 
on Education, International Sunday School Association 




New York: EATON & MAINS 
Cincinnati: JENNINGS & GRAHAM 



^^45 



Copyright, I909,by 
EATON & MAINS. 



248387 



CONTENTS 



PART I 



Child Study 
chapter page 

I. Introduction , ii 

II. The Physical Basis i6 

III. Child Activity and Imitation 22 

IV. The Play Instinct 27 

V. The Story Age 33 

VI, The Child's Standpoint 39 

VII. Individuality 44 

VIII. The Beginnings of Religion 49 

IX. The Preadolescent Period , 54 

X. The Early Adolescent Period 61 

XI. Later Adolescence 72 

XII. The Graded Curriculum 77 

PART II 

Some Elements qf Psychology 

XIII. Preliminary View 89 

XIV. Attention 93 

XV. Perception 99 

XVI. The Memory 104 

XVII. Imagination no 

XVIII. Thought. 116 

XIX. The Will 122 

XX. Habit 128 

XXI. Suggestion and Imitation 134 

XXII. The Emotions 138 

XXIII. Morality and Religion 144 

XXIV. The Mind and the Body 150 

3 



CONTENTS 



PART III 
The Art of Teaching 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXV. The Teacher's Preparation. 159 

XXVT. Aim and Method 165 

XXVII. The Teaching Process 171 

XXVIII. Illustration 175 

XXIX. Blackboard Work 187 

XXX. The Application of the Lesson 193 

XXXI. The Art of Questioning . 198 

XXXII. The Teaching of Geography 208 

XXXIII. The Teaching of Missions. 213 

XXXIV. The Use of Review 220 



BOOKS FOR SUPPLEMENTARY READING AND 
REFERENCE 

(Those marked with a * are especially helpful.) 

Child Study 

♦Fundamentals of Child Study. Edwin A. Kirkpatrick. 

Child Study for Teacher-Training. Dr. Charles Roads. 

Children's Ways. Dr. James Sully. 

A Study of Child Nature. Elizabeth Harrison. 

Some Fundamental Principles of Sunday and Bible Teach- 
ing. Dr. Hall, Pedagogical Seminary, vol. viii. 

Children's Interest in the Bible. George E. Dawson, Peda- 
gogical Seminary, vol. vii. 

The Child and the Imaginative Life. McCrady, Atlantic 
Monthly, vol. c. 

The Contents of Children's Minds on Entering School. Dr. 
Hall, Pedagogical Seminary, vol. i. 
*The Teacher and the Child. H. Thistleton Mark. 

Religious Periods of Child Growth. Christman, Educa- 
tional Review, vol. xvi. 

The Spiritual Life. Dr. Coe. 

Sunday School Work and Bible Study in the Light of 
Modern Pedagogy. Pedagogical Seminary, vol. iii. 

The Rehgious Content of the Child Mind. Dr. Hall, Prin- 
ciples of Religious Education, chap. vii. 

Preservation Versus the Rescue of the Child. J. T. Mc- 
Farland. 

The Book and the Child. J. T. McFarland. 

Letters to a Mother. Blow. 

The Child and the Bible. Hubbell. 
*The Boy Problem. Forbush. 

A Study of Child Ideals. Popular Science Monthly, vol. liii. 

The Religion of Boys. Association Outlook, Springfield, 
Massachusetts. 

Children's Collections. Pedagogical Seminary, vol. i. 

5 



6 BOOKS FOR REFERENCE 

Religious Periods of Child Growth. Educational Review, 
vol. xvi. 

Chums. Pedagogical Seminary, vol. ix. 

Adolescence. Dr. Hall. 

A Study of Adolescence. Pedagogical Seminary, vol, i. 
*The Unfolding Life. A. A. Lamoreaux. 

The Psychology of Religion. Starbuck. 
*The Study of the Child. Taylor. 

Psychology 
*Talks to Teachers on Psychology. Dr. William James. 
*Psychology and Psychic Culture. Halleck. 

A Primer of Psychology. Titchener. 

The Art of Securing Attention. Fitch. 

Psychological Principles of Education. Home. 

How to Hold Attention. Hughes. 

Thinking and Learning to Think. Schaeffer. 

How to Strengthen the Memory. Holbrook. 
*Mental Growth and Control. Dr. Oppenheim. 

The Art of Teaching 
*The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory. 
*The Point of Contact. Du Bois. 
*Primer on Teaching. Adams. 

Method of the Recitation. McMurry. 

Herbart and the Herbartians. DeGarmo. 

The Teaching of Bible Classes. Lee. 

The Art of Questioning. Fitch. 

The Art of Questioning. Home. 

The Use of Biography in Religious Instruction. McMurry. 

Manual of Biblical Geography. Hurlbut. 

Principles of Religious Instruction. Kent's Chapter on 
Geography. 
*A Manual of Methods for Sunday School Workers. Trull. 

Missions in the Sunday School. Hixon, 

Holding the Ropes. Brain. 

How to Interest Children in Missions. Crowell. 

General Helps 
*The Pedagogical Bible School. S. B. Haslett. 
Sunday School Teaching. W. W. Smith. 



BOOKS FOR REFERENCE 7 

Grading the Sunday School. Axtell. 
Sunday School Organization and Methods. Roads. 
How to Conduct a Sunday School. Lawrance. 
The Principles of Religious Education. 
*Principles and Ideals for the Sunday School. Burton and 
Mathews. 
Modern Methods in the Sunday School. Mead. 

Illustrative Work 

Henry Ward Beecher's Yale Lectures on Preaching has a 
very helpful chapter on "Rhetorical Illustrations"; C. H. 
Spurgeon's The Art of Illustration is exceedingly suggestive. 
* Hervey's Picture Work, Maltby's Map Modeling, and 
Hurlbut's The Bible Atlas are valuable helps. The Perry 
Picture Company, of Maiden, Massachusetts, and the W. A. 
Wilde Publishing Company, of Boston, furnish excellent 
copies of standard pictures at one cent each. The Globe 
Bible Publishing Company, of Philadelphia, furnishes photo- 
graphs of the Holy Land at ten cents each, and Underwood 
& Underwood, of New York, are headquarters for stereopticon 



PART I 
CHILD STUDY 



CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTION 

Sunday School and Secular School. The Sunday school 
occupies a field very different from that covered by the 
secular school. In many ways the two cannot be compared 
at all. (i) The whole atmosphere is different. The Sunday 
school, is held in the church and on Sunday, and all wear 
their best clothes — facts in themselves enough to put the 
two institutions into different classes. (2) The object is 
"not so much to impart knowledge as to mold character." 
(3) Viewed as a school from the merely secular standpoint, 
it is subject to limitations that are well-nigh fatal. It is 
restricted to a single hour on a single day of the week, and 
half of this time is taken up with what the secular teacher 
would call preliminaries. The teachers are not paid, and 
with some exceptions have not been trained for their work. 
Attendance is purely voluntary on the part of both teacher 
and pupil. The state compels; the church can only invite. 
If the home is careless, the pupil may play truant with 
impunity. Methods of discipline highly successful in public 
schools fail utterly: the slightest word may cause the pupil 
to come no more. But there is no need of comparing the 
two; they are on different planes. 

The Object of the Sunday School. The Sunday school 
worker must realize at the outset that he is not a teacher in 
the merely secular sense, but that he is, rather, a teacher in 
the sense that Jesus was a teacher: he is a molder of human 
souls. The object of the Sunday school is to impart the 
great truths of morality and religion and to translate them 
into action and character. To teach well in the Sunday 
school requires skill and experience. Trained teachers are 
as imperatively needed as in the secular school. Indeed, 
the need is greater. In the Sunday school everything de- 
pends upon the teacher. If he is skillful and magnetic the 
limitations that we have mentioned will disappear. At- 



12 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

tendance can be won without compulsion; discipline is a 
matter of sympathy and of knowledge of one's pupils; the 
hour is merely an opportunity, and if it is used rightly it is 
ample. The Sunday school teacher must realize that for 
the moment he is like his Master, who "went up into a 
mountain, and when he was set, his disciples came to him." 
His attitude should be constantly this: These souls have 
come to me of their own accord for an hour; I may do with 
them what I will; I must hold and mold them; I must use 
every moment of this precious time as if it were pure gold. 

Scc«Iar School Methods* Widely as the Sunday school 
and the public school may dififer in object and in methods of 
work, there are fundamental matters where they coincide. 
The most important consideration is that they work upon 
the same material — little children, adolescents, and young 
men and women. The public schools are beginning to realize 
that the first requisite of the teacher is a knowledge of the 
pupils he is to teach. If he does not fully understand them 
— their point of view, their capacities, their limitations, their 
ways of thought, their physical peculiarities — he is a failure 
from the outset. Hence the schools of pedagogy, and the 
attention that is now being given to child study, to psy- 
chology, to methods, to educational science. All this is ex- 
ceedingly practical. "The science of education," says Bishop 
Vincent, "is only a systematized knowledge of human nature," 
and it is needed precisely as much by the Sunday school 
teacher as it is by the teacher in the public schools. 

Sunday School Classification. Psychologists recognize four 
great stages in the period of a child's physical and mental 
development: (i) The Primary stage of childhood, succeed- 
ing infancy, and reaching from about the age of three to the 
age of five or six; (2) the Secondary, covering the years from 
six or seven to eight; (3) the Preadolescent stage, those from 
nine to twelve; and (4) the Early Adolescent, reaching from 
thirteen to sixteen. To these successive stages in natural 
development we shall hereafter give closer attention. They 
are mentioned here because our public schools generally are 
as closely as practicable graded in accordance with them. 
They have to be thus graded, not because any school authori- 
ties have so decided, but because of the profound changes 



INTRODUCTION 13 

that nature makes in the growing child. It is as important 
in the Sunday school as in the secular school to recognize 
this natural classification. Two or three conditions supply- 
appropriate names for the Sunday school departments: 
(i) The Cradle Roll, which cares for infants during the first 
three years of their lives; (2) the Beginners' Department, 
which includes children of three, four, and five years; (3) the 
Primary Department, for children aged six, seven, and eight; 
(4) the Junior Department, for children of nine, ten, eleven, 
and twelve; and (5) the Intermediate Department, for youths 
from thirteen to sixteen. Beyond these come (6) the Senior 
Department, (7) the Teacher-Training Department, and 
(8) the Adult Bible Class. 

The Elementary Departments. "First and chiefly," says 
Dr. Forbush, "it [the Sunday school] is the agency, supple- 
mental to the home, where children and young people are 
taught." The most important work in any Sunday school 
is that done with its boys and girls. All plans for bettering 
the school should begin with them, and all plans for retrench- 
ment and economy should reach them last of all. No other 
departments so imperatively demand trained workers; the 
material is plastic as no other, and the molding of it requires 
the very highest skill. The study of childhood and the 
methods of molding it is regarded now by all educators as 
the most important branch of the teaching profession. It 
is obvious, therefore, that every complete course in teacher- 
training must begin with a study of the elementary depart- 
ments. The center of our Sunday school system is the child. 
If we can reach him as we should, we can reach all the rest, 
but to reach him we must understand him completely. 

Child Study. Much has been written during the past ten 
or fifteen years of what some would call the new science of 
child study. Under the leadership of Dr. G. Stanley Hall 
every phase of child life has been investigated with modern 
scientific thoroughness, and that the results arrived at have 
very largely influenced educational methods no one can deny. 
Dr. Hall has himself summed up the matter in this way: "It 
has almost re-created the department of juvenile criminology; 
has revolutionized and almost re-created school hygiene; 
made adolescence, a strange word ten years ago, one of the 



14 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

most pregnant and suggestive for both science and educa- 
tion; given us the basis of a new religious psychology, and 
laid the foundation of a new and larger philosophy and 
psychology." 

The basis of the science is the fact that children are not 
merely adults in miniature; that they are not merely little 
men and little women ; but that physically and mentally they 
are peculiar to themselves. There are certain well-defined 
stages in their lives : the child of four is vastly different from 
the same child at ten, and almost totally different from the 
same child at fifteen. There are certain periods of rapid 
growth that affect the whole nature of the child; there are 
periods when memory is peculiarly active, periods when read- 
ing matter is especially demanded, when the imagination is 
dominant, and when play is the ruling force. There are the 
chum period, the awkward age, the bashful time, the smart 
age, and the show-off period. "Child study," says Kirk- 
patrick, "is properly concerned with all the changes that 
usually take place in human beings before they reach ma- 
turity. Most of these changes occur before the age of twenty, 
but some may not appear until ten or fifteen years later." 

Teachers "Who Do Not Understand Children. Most failures 
in the elementary departments arise from the mistaken 
notion that children are merely adults in miniature. Men 
and women sit perfectly still during the Sunday school hour, 
therefore children should be compelled to do the same ; good 
results are obtained by lecturing and preaching to adults, 
therefore the same methods should be used with children. 
Many seem to consider that the position of the teacher is a 
fixed one in front of the class, never to be varied during the 
hour save as it becomes necessary to reach over and shake 
some incorrigible wriggler. I have personally been in many 
schools where the primary teacher has been so constant an 
object of commiseration that she has come to look upon 
herself as a kind of martyr. Many times, indeed, she is such 
from the fact that she is required alone to do work that 
should be divided into eight or ten parts, but more often 
she is the victim of false methods and mistaken ideas. Al- 
most the whole energy of some elementary teachers is ex- 
pended in the attempt to maintain order. I have seen good. 



INTRODUCTION IS 

faithful, conscientious workers come from their hour of 
teaching almost exhausted. "The children were awful 
to-day," they would sigh; "what shall 1 do with them?" 

The Difficulty is to be traced to lack of organization and 
of method. Nothing of the kind may be found in our best 
public schools, for the simple reason that the schools are 
carefully graded, and the teachers are compelled to under- 
stand children and school organization and methods before 
they are intrusted with the charge of a room. They under- 
stand perfectly that "children cannot be kept in order by 
force," that they cannot be reached in the same way as 
adults, and that they cannot be allowed to govern them- 
selves. The teacher who understands children knows that 
there must be constant variety, a careful grouping of ages, 
a constant appeal on the level of the child's knowledge. 

The Object of the Coarse. Naturally, therefore, we 
shall begin with a study of the Sunday school child 
between the ages of three and sixteen. With that mar- 
velous world of infancy before the age of three, that pe- 
riod on which a whole library of books and articles has 
been written, we shall do nothing. From the standpoint 
of the Sunday school it is the Cradle Roll period, the period 
during which the mother is supreme in the child's life, or, 
in the words of Dr. Hall, the time when the mother stands 
for the child "in the place of God." Then, too, we shall 
omit some things which are regarded as fundamental in the 
science of child study. Our problem is to make use only of 
those principles and discoveries which will be of practical 
value to the Sunday school worker. With child study and 
pedagogical psychology and the like as mere fads or educa- 
tional hobbies we have no sympathy. We shall seek only 
those things that are supremely practical and founded on 
hard common sense. 



CHAPTER II 
THE PHYSICAL BASIS 

Physical Elements. All child training begins with the 
element of the physical. The object of the Sunday school 
is primarily spiritual; its chief aim is the molding of char- 
acter; yet like everything else in human life its foundations 
rest upon the earth. It must begin with the physical; success 
or failure may depend wholly upon physical elements. The 
school, for instance, which perches a four-year-old boy on a 
high pew with his legs danghng, his heels knocking against 
a board, boys to the left and right of him, and tries to compel 
him to sit perfectly still and be preached to for an hour may 
be highly spiritual and deeply in earnest, yet it is flying in 
the face of nature, and, so far as the boy is concerned, the 
result of the work must be called failure when compared with 
the results which might have been accomplished with right 
methods. In many Sunday schools teachers are placed at 
great disadvantage when compared with teachers in the 
secular schools, because of inadequate quarters provided 
with uncomfortable and unhealthful furnishings. One in- 
evitable result of the adequate training of teachers will be 
a concerted effort to secure for the pupils the most favorable 
physical conditions. 

A Separate Room for the Elementary Departments. The 
work of the average Sunday school must be done in quarters 
far from ideal. In most cases this cannot be avoided. The 
Sunday school exists usually as a department of a church, 
and it is compelled to be content with what the church is able 
to furnish. In the smallest churches, which have only the 
audience room to offer, the Beginners', Primary, and Junior 
Departments are of necessity seriously handicapped. But 
no matter what the condition of the church may be, one 
thing must be understood : the little children must have a 
room to themselves. This is imperative. It should be the 
first work of every Beginners', Primary, and Junior teacher 

i6 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS 17 

who has not such a room to secure it as soon as possible. 
The church must do its best to supply this need in some 
way, 

Common-Sense Requirements. As to the location and 
arrangement and care of the room, much may be learned 
from the public schools. The room should be located, if 
possible, on the ground floor; the entrance should be from 
the side or the rear; it should be bright and cheerful, and so 
arranged that no pupil will be compelled to face a window. 
The heating arrangement should be adequate; the tempera- 
ture should be from sixty-five to seventy degrees. Those 
who find this too cold should wear heavier clothing; Amer- 
icans as a general thing keep their houses and public rooms 
too warm. . 

Furnishings* The indispensable things in a primary room 
are small chairs, an organ or other musical instrument suit- 
able for accompaniments, a blackboard, a table for the 
teacher, and charts and pictures suitable to illustrate the 
work in hand. The iniquity of placing children for an hour 
on seats where their feet dangle need not be dwelt upon. 
Good primary chairs may be bought for five dollars a dozen. 
In case the class must use the pews in the audience room, 
low benches may be secured at a nominal sum to be used as 
foot rests. The worst possible room is one with a tier "gal- 
lery." Mrs. Sara J. Crafts has thus described an attractive 
primary room : 

"The floor of my ideal room is level, and covered with a 
bright, cheery carpet. By my side stands my little table, 
useful in many ways. My bell is not on it, for I lost that 
[purposely] some time ago. 

"I am sure you never saw anything more comfortable or 
cunning than those little cane-seated chairs without arms, 
and with seats only twelve inches high. During the intro- 
ductory and closing exercises the little chairs are arranged 
in straight rows in front of me, but when I give the lesson 
to my assistant teachers they are clustered in groups about 
each teacher, who also sits in one of the little chairs, so that 
she may literally become as a little child. 

"There is plenty of light and fresh air in my room, abun- 
dance of sunshine coming in and making us glad. 



i8 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

"There are pictures and mottoes on the wall, brought by 
the children to decorate their Sunday home. There are plants 
and vines at the windows which require a little of my atten- 
tion through the week. They add much to that element of 
'at-homeativeness' which I would have pervade everything. 

"Over in a corner is a small cabinet which has in it treasures 
for illustrating the lesson, such as my picture scrapbook, 
maps, blackboard outlines, etc. 

"My blackboard is not very large, and stands on a light 
easel, so that I can move it to the most advantageous 
positions. 

"The organ is placed at my right hand. Its sweet and 
sure tones enable me always to give the children the right 
pitch, and in other ways it is a great help to us all." * 

Organization of Beginners' and Primary Departments. 
The ideal Sunday school is made up of small classes through- 
out. Many teachers seem to consider a class of three or four 
hardly worth the while, but in many ways such a class is 
ideal. The best teaching is ever that where the teacher can 
get close to the hearts of the taught. Where it is possible to 
have a separate room for the beginners, a superintendent and 
one or two assistants can do the work in the way that teach- 
ing is done in the secular kindergartens. But when the 
children are six years old and enter the primary, there must 
be classes in order that the grade work may be done. The 
classes here should if possible be limited to six pupils each. 
The superintendent conducts all the general exercises, and 
teaches the International Lesson to all the children, the 
class teachers having fifteen minutes of the hour for the sup- 
plemental lesson. In the Beginners' Department the In- 
ternational Beginners' Course prepared specially for children 
three, four, and five years old is taught ; and the supplemental 
verses are woven into the opening talk and program. Now, 
however, the new International Graded Lessons are ready 
for use, and their use will render supplemental lessons un- 
necessary. 

The Preliminary Record. The room properly fitted and the 
classes organized, it is time to become acquainted with those 



Open Letters to Primary Teachers. 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS 19 

who are to be taught. In the pubHc schools it is being insisted 
upon more and more that each pupil shall be thoroughly ex- 
amined for physical weaknesses and for significant facts in 
his life history. The Sunday school teacher has the child 
for so short a period that it will be impossible to go far with 
such work; but there are certain things that the Sunday 
school teacher should know if she is to take full advantage 
of her opportunity. The teacher who has been given a new 
class or division should begin her work by making a careful 
study of every child under her care. She should consult 
the public school teachers who have her division during the 
week, and she should also visit the mothers and gain if 
possible their sympathy and cooperation. If this work is 
divided, and each teacher in the primary room is made re- 
sponsible only for those in her class the task will not be a 
hard one. The teachers can then have frequent conferences, 
and each can feel that she knows all the class. 

The Home Life of the Pttpil. To know the child's home 
environment is very important. In small country schools 
there will be no difficulty; the community is almost a great 
family where each knows intimately all the others. In the 
larger schools, however, it is very different. The teacher is 
appointed to a class; it is merely a mass of children each 
externally much like all the others. If she is versed in the 
knowledge of humaii nature, she may make shrewd deduc- 
tions as to the homes and the training of the individual 
pupils; but only a personal visit, and perhaps many personal 
visits, will give her all that she should know. What is the 
race of the parents? What is the father's occupation? Is 
the home religious? Is the child sympathized with in its 
Sunday school efforts ? Can the home be depended upon for 
cooperation? What has the child been taught of the Bible 
or of religion? How do the parents spend the Sabbath? 
What methods of discipline is the child accustomed to? 
Has he been taught to obey? Is he the only child in the 
family? These are important questions. Knowing a child's 
home life, one knows instinctively the plane upon which to 
meet him and the appeal that will be effective. The best 
teaching concerns itself not with the mass — that is, the class 
as a whole — ^but with the individual learner. It is soul to soul. 



20 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

The Physical Senses* Is the child defective in any way? 
Can he from where he sits see the blackboard perfectly? Is 
he near-sighted or defective in his vision in any way? Is his 
hearing impaired? If he is dull or inattentive, may it not be 
caused by failure to hear the teacher? Dr. Kirkpatrick is 
authority for the statement that "a large proportion of the 
children classed as peculiar or inattentive by the teacher, 
especially if they have a dull or heavy look, are usually found 
to be defective in hearing. . . . The moral effects are often 
worse when children are defective in one ear only, or a part 
of the time only, for they are much more likely to be mis- 
understood by teachers and unjustly blamed for not paying 
attention or not doing as directed, since the teacher knows 
that they have done better, and thinks they can do better 
now if they will." 

Delay and Precocity in Development. Children cannot be 
classified by a mere age division. The city boy is more pre- 
cocious than the country boy, though less developed in body. 
Scores of elements come in to influence or retard develop- 
ment, physical or mental. He may be at a growth period 
when everything is subservient to the merely physical. Says 
Dr. Forbush : "This boy comes of a slow, stolid, substantial 
stock and matures slowly. Here is one of a tropical tem- 
perament, who is precocious. Sickness, lack of nutrition or 
care, an accident, a sorrow, may have kept that one back. 
This shows how necessary it is to know the exact home con- 
ditions and the life history in order to know the boy." ^ 

The Need of Sttch "Work. No one who has made such a 
study of a child will ever be skeptical as to its value. I have 
known teachers .to take a new interest in their work after 
once they had been led to get intimately acquainted with 
their pupils. A mere class of "young-uns," to be met and 
wrestled with once a week, was transformed into needy, 
lovable human souls, that appealed to all the motherhood 
in the teacher's nature. Freddie is diffident and woefully 
inattentive; he is supposed to be stupid; his former teacher 
declares that it is useless to try to do anything with him. 
But his stupidity is in reality due to defective hearing or 



1 The Boy Problem. 



THE PHYSICAL BASIS 21 

other physical cause, often easily removed by a physician, 
such as adenoids. He has never been understood and has 
never had proper sympathy or training. He nearly died with 
scarlet fever at six, and the attack left him puny and nerv- 
ous. His home is one of poverty; the father is lazy and 
drunken and the mother with her six children is doing her 
best, but is discouraged. Knowing this, how your heart 
warms up to the unfortunate little boy ! how different will be 
your teaching from what it was before you knew! And it 
will be so with all the class. Each is a little human soul 
with a point of approach that is easy and natural if only 
once you can find it. It is only by knowing all that one can 
teach perfectly the things that are for the child's temporal 
and eternal good. 



CHAPTER III 
CHILD ACTIVITY AND IMITATION 

Child Activity. The most characteristic feature of child- 
hood is its restlessness. The healthy child is a miracle of 
activity ; one can never cease marvehng at the tireless energy 
of a four-year-old boy; he is never still a moment save when 
he is asleep. He slips rapidly from one thing to another; 
one can no more keep him still than one can still the wind. 
He is incapable of sustained attention; the world is a great 
wonderland to him, as marvelous as that which Alice entered 
through the rabbit hole, and he lives in a state of continual 
excitement. Everything is new and perfect; marvels so 
swarm on every hand that he must jump rapidly from wonder 
to wonder. His feeble power of sustained attention is not a 
defect; it is nature's safeguard against a one-sided develop- 
ment. The teacher who compels attention to books for long 
periods is working against nature; he is making the child 
lopsided. The activities of child life should not be repressed 
by the schoolroom, they should be directed. The weak power 
of sustained attention should not be treated as a defect, it 
should be recognized as a source of power, and used. There 
should be frequent changes of program; the school should 
be ruled by "Do" rather than "Don't"; there should be 
expression rather than repression. It is the work of the 
teacher to enlist the superabundant activities of the child and 
turn them from prankish channels into useful work. The old 
method was to compel order; the new method is to win it. 

Lack of Discipline in any schoolroom is merely the teacher's 
lack of knowledge of her pupils. If the school goes wrong, 
seek the cause not in the school but in yourself. Have you 
lost the attention of the class? Are the boys at the back 
sticking pins into each other and squabbling over caps? 
Perhaps you have been too long at one point. Vary your 
program suddenly. Say with a change of tone, "I have 
something here that I want to show you." Every eye will 
instantly be turned in your direction. Is the school restless 



CHILD ACTIVITY AND IMITATION 23 

and growing unruly? Perhaps you have kept it sitting still 
too long. Have it arise for a motion song or a march about 
the room. The position of the pupils should be changed 
constantly. At the repeating of one verse they should arise; 
for another exercise they should face the rear, then they 
should sit, then arise and march about the room. The 
teacher may sometimes stop with profit and put them 
through a short gymnastic exercise. The key to child life is 
action. The child must have something to do continually; 
he demands employment, and if nothing is given him, he 
will find something himself. The expert teacher keeps 
everyone in the room busy. 

Scolding. Is the school cross and incorrigible? Examine 
yourself. Have you been cheerful and sunny? Children 
reflect the teacher like a mirror. Have you been scolding? 
That would be a great mistake. Scolding does no good 
anywhere. There are hundreds of ways to correct and to 
restrain and to rule children without scolding them. The 
whole atmosphere of the Sunday school room should be one 
of love and cheerfulness and mutual helpfulness. 

Expert teachers handle disorder without calling attention 
to it. The mischievous boy in the rear may be called out 
to help assist in the work, or a group of restless, playing ones 
may, on one pretext or another, be separated and located 
in other seats, the teacher meanwhile not changing at all 
the tone of her voice and not interrupting the course of the 
lesson. The ideal teacher disciplines her school without its 
suspecting her action for a moment. 

Children Misanderstood. Much that children are scolded 
and punished for is not intentional mischief at all. The 
child who in her mother's absence painted the parlor chairs 
red honestly expected to be praised for her work. I have 
known a child to be scolded and even shaken because he 
was sleepy in Sunday school, and another violently threat- 
ened because he pounded with his heels. Professor Marks 
makes this very clear: 

"In good sooth, many of the things we call 'naughty' are 
not naughty. Many a time when a child is made unhappy 
in a railroad carriage, to the discomfort of all the passengers, 
it is somebody else who is restless and fidgety and causes 



24 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

all the trouble, not the child; it is the grandmother or mother 
who can't sit still, some 'fixed idea' of childish naughtiness 
seeming to haunt her like an evil influence — a veritable bee 
in the bonnet. Think of the little mortal, every nerve in his 
body twitching with desire for activity — a desire which he 
cannot help, but which simply means that he is alive — his 
blood coursing uneasily in limbs doomed by the fiat of his 
elders to be still! Moreover, children's movements are some- 
times misunderstood. Some kind little impulse may be 
swaying the child, and he starts to perform the service. 
Small enough it may be, perhaps, even mistaken; but it was 
a genuinely good impulse, and the service the best the child 
knew how to render. Especially should we remember that 
physical movements, something to be done, even though it 
may at times be contrary to the present mood or wish of 
the adult who is with the child, is the one way the child has 
of expressing moral impulse. He has not yet learned to talk 
his morals; he can but try, act, and make mistakes." ^ 

Gentleness, patience, kindly explanation, tact, and, above 
all, sympathy must he have who would mold childhood. 
There must be no unnecessary harshness. The child that 
refrains because of fear of a whipping has not been morally 
benefited at all. 

Activity Enlisted. "Activity is the watchword of modern 
pedagogy." "Keep the scholar busy and he will not be dis- 
orderly." "Young children," says Dr. Hall, "cannot exer- 
cise their minds to good effect when sitting still." How to 
keep the child employed in Sunday school is a question that 
requires much careful study. Each teacher must think it 
out in view of his own conditions. A few general suggestions 
may be made, however. If you are to show a picture, call a 
boy to hold it before the class. Vary the exercises continually. 
Use the blackboard constantly, if it is only to print words on. 
Get a boy to erase it. Have it moved into the light. Bring 
interesting things — nests, flowers, pictures — and ask ques- 
tions. If a pupil is inattentive, call upon him frequently. 
Use praise freely. If there is disorder, go and stand by the 
disorderly ones, all the time continuing the lesson. If a 



iThe Teacher and the Child. 



CHILD ACTIVITY AND IMITATION 25 

child must be dealt with, retain him after the class is dis- 
missed and try to make a friend of him. 

Imitation, This brings us to the next great characteristic 
of childhood — imitation. The child is a mirror held up for 
those about it to see themselves. Whatever he sees he 
imitates: the bo}^ goes to church, and thereupon plays church 
for a week; his father is a carpenter, and he must play build- 
ing houses; he imitates a horse, an engine, an automobile. 
There is also a reflex imitation. "1 once laughed," says a 
teacher, "and instantly the whole school laughed, though 
they knew nothing of the cause of my laughing." This is an 
exceedingly potent element in Sunday school work. Like 
teacher like school. The joyous, laughing teacher has a 
cheerful, eager class; the irritable teacher has a class that 
acts as she feels. The best criticism of one's teaching comes 
always from watching the moods mirrored by one's class. 

The Teacher is the First Lesson. It is therefore highly 
important that the teacher watch herself. One has testified 
that after sixty years he remembers his first teacher as the 
sweetest and most beautiful woman of his whole life; that 
he can remember, as if it were yesterday, the exquisite neat- 
ness of the dress she wore and the flowers she always brought 
for the desk. This he reckoned as one of the most potent 
influences that ever touched his life. "The first requisite 
that should be required of the teacher," says a wise observer, 
"is that she should make herself personally attractive so 
far as may be to the children. The teacher; whether he will 
or not, is the first object lesson the pupil ever receives in 
vSchool." The children should never see their teacher other 
than serene, and cheery, and radiant with sympathy. 

The Reflex of the Home. The element of imitation enables 
us to detect weak places in the child's training and environ- 
ment. Here is an example quoted by Russell: "Boy, Irish, 
age seven. Stood drinking water at a sink with his back to 
other people. Was making believe to be drinking in a saloon 
with his feet crossed and remarking on the quality of the 
drink to the imaginary barkeeper. Paid imaginary money 
and received imaginary change." * 



* Child Observations. 



26 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

The little fellow needed help such as only the most careful 
Christian worker could give. Preaching and mere precept 
would benefit him very little. He needed to be appealed to 
on the motor side. He needed better objects for imitation. 
The ideal is that "the atmosphere of the child's life should 
be one of happiness, pleasure, joy, beauty, and occupation," 
and it is the duty of the Sunday school to supply these ele- 
ments as far as it is possible within the time given it. 

Varieties of Imitation. Those who have studied children 
have differentiated several varieties of imitation in them, but 
for our purpose we need study only two: dramatic imitation 
and idealistic imitation. In the first the child "makes be- 
lieve" that he is a bear, or a dog, or a horse, and acts out 
the part sometimes so intensely as to forget for the time his 
own identity. The teacher may often direct this instinct 
very profitably. "For example, some sixth-grade children, 
who were taught geography in such a way that with very 
little help and suggestion they eagerly presented in character 
the different races, in costumes which they had made, gained 
more of real development than in a term of formal memor- 
izing." Children for diversion may be led to imagine for a 
moment that they are birds and flap their wings vigorously. 
In idealistic imitation the child tries to imitate some person 
or act that has appealed to him as peculiarly ideal. "A little 
girl of four," says Kirkpatrick, "who admired a little girl in 
a story who always walked and talked quietly and nicely, 
imitated her, and apparently thought of her as an ideal. In 
a similar way a boy of three seemed to have a pretty good 
idea of 'papa's jolly boy,' and sometimes when not feeling 
well made considerable effort to smile and look pleasant un- 
der the inspiration of that ideal. Such idealistic imitation 
is, however, largely a matter of training till the teens are 
reached." It is the privilege of the Sunday school to insist 
upon high ideals, and thus, even though the time is short, 
furnish subjects for imitation that shall leave a lasting im- 
pression upon the child. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE PLAY INSTINCT 

The Nature of Play. There are several theories as to play. 
Spencer considered it simply as the outlet of surplus energy. 
Young puppies frisk and leap and chase and tumble over 
each other in sheer excess of animal life. The fountain of 
energy is so full that it bubbles over; the boy must shout or 
he will burst. But later investigators have added to this 
interpretation. Play is instinctive in its nature. "The form 
of the play is related to the instincts of the animal," says 
Kirkpatrick. "In general, the animal uses the same powers 
that his ancestors have used in gaining food, and avoiding 
enemies, and thus exercises the powers he will himself need 
to use when no longer protected by paternal care. Each 
instinct as it appears is thus developed and perfected by 
playful activity before it needs to be used seriously." 

The Play of Children differs from that of the lower animals, 
just as the child himself differs from the animals. The kitten 
in play may steal softly upon a bit of cloth, pounce upon it, 
and toss and worry it precisely as if it were a mouse, but in 
all his play he will never rise one step above the small round 
of cat life. He originates nothing; he learns nothing from 
imitation. But child play not only imitates the manifold 
activities of human life, but it adapts and varies; it is gov- 
erned by rules; and it requires even from the first something 
of self-control. Starting at first as mere activity, it becomes 
more and more complex until it shades off into work so 
naturally that one may not detect the dividing line. The 
plays of* boys are more than half work. The children who 
prepare and furnish a packing box so that they may play 
keeping house, or who construct a ring and tent and apparatus 
for playing circus are in reality working just as hard as the 
adult who builds the "real" house or makes the "real" circus. 

The Enjoyment of Play. It is needless to dwell upon the 
universality of play in childhood or upon the zest and vigor 

27 



28 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

with which every healthy child abandons himself to it during 
all of his waking hours. If the child does not want to play, 
the mother becomes alarmed ; if he refuses to play, she thinks 
of sending for the doctor. He plays everything: now he is 
astride a stick and galloping hard, now he is a bear roaring 
most ferociously, now he is a mason building a tall chimney. 
Into it all he enters with intense earnestness; nothing in all 
his later life will ever be more real to him or be entered into 
with more intense delight. There is no difficulty in getting a 
healthy child to play. To repress the play instinct is to work 
against nature, and to cripple and to deform the life. 

The Directing of Play. The function of play, then, is to 
prepare the animal for his adult activities. He is serving his 
apprenticeship ; he is gaining physical and intellectual control 
of himself. The child who has played the best will succeed 
the most surely in life. The boy who leads on the playground 
may lead in business and affairs. The child should be allowed, 
indeed, encouraged to play, but his plays should be carefully 
watched and directed. It is not too much to say that educa- 
tion is merely the wise direction of the child's plays. Parents 
and teachers, therefore, should not regard play as a necessary 
evil; they should regard it as a necessity as much as food and 
drink and should provide for it and cultivate it with pains- 
taking care. The Sunday school teacher should know what 
her boys and girls are playing, and should advise them and 
direct them in their games. 

Social Plays. Play is of two kinds: the solitary and the 
social. In the former the child amuse« himself: the little 
girl plays with her doll; the little boy plays with his "horse." 
But it is incomplete playing unless there is a witness. "See, 
mamma, how the hossie goes." Children are by nature social 
in their instincts, and the most ideal play is that where 
several play together, directed wisely now and then by an 
adult. Here we have the most potent source of education. 
In the group the fittest leads; the best informed lays down 
the laws. The boy who has never even heard of a zoological 
garden will have a lively realization of one after a day of 
play with boys who have actually visited such a place, a far 
livelier realization than could have come from any reading 
or description by elders, for he has acted it, and felt it, and 



THE PLAY INSTINCT 29 

indeed for a time has been it. Thus children educate each 
other, not through precept and book, but through that most 
vital of all sources of knowledge and power — actual contact 
with the concrete, observation of the very object. 

Imagination. For indeed it is the very object as far as 
educating power is concerned. It is not, perhaps, an actual 
circus that the boy takes part in, but his imagination supplies 
all deficiencies. Given a few lines and the child constructs 
the picture. To the boy riding the broomstick it is a real 
horse that he is guiding, to be governed carefully by all the 
rules that he knows. "So vivid is this early imagination that 
it sometimes interferes with the conception of truth. In the 
very early years of childhood it is difficult to say that a child 
is lying, even when he is not speaking the truth." This vivid 
power of imagination helps the teacher greatly in directing 
the child's play. One can do much with very little material 
to work with. 

The Enlistment of Play. And this brings us to the great 
practical question that has so long engaged the minds of 
educators: Can we make use of this play instinct in the 
training of childhood? Plato declared that "Play has the 
mightiest influence on the maintenance and non-maintenance 
of laws; and if children's plays are conducted according to 
laws and rules, and they always pursue their amusements 
in conformity with order, while finding pleasure therein, it 
need not be feared that when they are grown up they will 
break laws whose objects are more serious." Herbert Spencer 
maintained that teaching should bring pleasure. "The 
monotonous drill of the olden times was uninteresting, if not 
painful. It implied that the true end of education was to 
reform, to recast the evil nature of the child into a goodly 
mold. The school, then, became a place of torture, and not 
a place of play." 

Froebel. But the one whose name will always be connected 
with the practical enlistment of play for educational ends is 
Wilhelm August Froebel, 1 782-1852, who devoted his whole 
life to a study of children and the methods of training 
them. It was Froebel's firm conviction that the first six or 
seven years of a child's life are all-important. He took as 
his motto, "Come, let us live with our children," and he 



30 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

sought to direct with care every instinct and activity from 
the first. He dwelt constantly on "the importance of rightly 
comprehending the child even from his first appearance on 
earth and in the course of his cultivation, as well as in his 
nature and in his relations to his surroundings, especially in 
his relation to the world and to God; and it is by no means 
unimportant for parents and child, and first of all for child and 
mother, to see in what relation the child's plaything and play 
appears to himself, to his nearest surroundings, to nature, 
and to God — to all hfe. 

"Peace and joy, health and fullness of life accrue to the 
child when his play, like his general development, is in 
harmony with the all-life, . . . 

"It has indeed been stated, even at the beginning of this 
undertaking, as a fundamental truth, that the plays and 
occupations of children should by no means be treated as 
offering merely means for passing the time (we might say, 
for consuming time), hence only as outside activity, but 
rather that by means of such plays and employments the 
child's innermost nature must be satisfied. ... In the self- 
occupation and play of the child, especially in the first years, 
is formed (in union with the surroundings of the child and 
under their silent, unremarked influence) not only the germ, 
but also the core, of his whole future life, in respect to all 
which we must recognize as already contained in a germ 
and vital center — individuality, selfhood, future personality. 
From the first voluntary employment, therefore, proceeds not 
merely exercise and strengthening of the body, the limbs, and 
the exterior organs of the senses, but especially also develop- 
ment of the heart and training of the intellect, as well as the 
awakening of the inner sense and sound judgment."^ 

The result of Froebel's studies and observations was the 
kindergarten, whose general methods and aims are now so 
well known. 

The Kindergarten Idea. The kindergarten age is from 
three to six or seven. This is the object-period in the child's 
life. The range of experience is exceedingly narrow, but 
every door stands wide open and the world is enlarging 



* Pedagogics of the Kindergarten. 



THE PLAt INSTINCT 31 

rapidly. The ruling senses now are touch and sight; the 
child must handle and see, and if there is color and motion 
he is all the more interested. General precepts, golden texts 
— the abstract generally — interest him very little; they are 
beyond his comprehension. He knows and can appreciate 
only the concrete. He wants to play. The teacher to hold 
his interest must play with him, must show him something 
or do something or tell a story on the plane of his experience. 
Froebel began by giving playthings, "gifts" he called them — 
first soft balls of various colors, then a cube, and so on. The 
child while he played was taught color and form and move- 
ment and harmony. He was given many little songs and 
exercises all arranged in the order of his development. Many 
have criticised this system, as expecting too much of the 
child, and it is true that some of Froebel' s followers have 
done ridiculous things in his name, but his underlying prin- 
ciple was sound. He has shown the only logical way. 

The Sunday School Kindergarten. Children begin to come 
to Sunday school at three and even before, and they should 
be encouraged to do so. What shall be done with them? 
Between these "beginners" and the children between seven 
and nine there is a great gulf, how great only the experienced 
primary worker knows. There must be a separation. Shall 
we use Froebel's methods, and play with "gifts," and sew 
cards, and model in clay, and work with the sand table? 
Many of these methods are impracticable in Sunday school. 
A kindergarten hour for children while their parents were at 
church has been found helpful; and a church kindergarten 
that met five days every week has had a most gratifying 
success, but a distinctly Sunday school kindergarten de- 
partment has not yet succeeded. Froebel's motto, quoted 
above, is sound, but the Sunday school can give them 
only one hour each week. We can, however, make use 
of the kindergarten idea. Nature has commanded that he 
who would teach children must appeal to them as nature 
intended. Dr. Haslett has given as the object of the 
Beginners' Department of the Sunday school, first, "A kind, 
active, obedient, and cheerful child," and second, "A sense 
of God's power, nearness, and kindness." He declares that 
the media through which the young child can be reached 



32 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

are only six: "Sense-perception, memory, imitation, sugges- 
tion, general intelligence, and imagination." This gives at 
once the key. The Sunday school Beginners' Department 
(kindergarten) should train the child in kindness, activity, 
obedience, and cheerfulness, and on the religious side shotild 
dwell only on God's power, nearness, and kindness. Religion 
at this period should not be taught in its doctrinal bearings. 
It should be made a living, active, practical thing; it should 
be the religion of doing. 

Method. Froebel opened and closed his kindergarten with 
prayer, all taking part. He taught much through simple 
songs. Thus far we are on firm ground; the Sunday school 
kindergartner's first duty is to find simple prayers to teach 
her class, and simple little songs which dwell upon the power 
and nearness and kindness of God. As to the materials and 
objects used to bring home lessons, much will depend upon 
the tact and common sense of the teacher. A nest or a 
flower or a leaf can be made to arouse all the curiosity and 
wonder in a child, and can lead him very near to the loving 
God. Pictures there should be in abundance, as good as can 
be procured, and there should be constant recourse to the 
blackboard. Every Sunday's lesson will suggest some object 
to be brought in — a flower, a seed, or the picture of an animal. 
Happily teachers in this department now have in the 
new Graded Lessons for Beginners admirable guidance and 
fine illustrations of right methods. The teacher must learn 
by experience and must adapt herself to circumstance and 
to the actual conditions in her own class. Book rules are to 
be studied only for their suggestiveness. She must keep her- 
self from fads and hobbies and be governed by stern common 
sense. * 

Happy, then, the teacher who can play with her scholars 
and at the same time teach them eternal truths; happy 
the teacher who can make work play. The ideal beginners' 
class is that where the teacher is surrounded by a little circle 
of eager questioners and answerers, who are learning some- 
thing new and good every moment, and who are having a 
good time because they are playing and not working. This 
is the true kindergarten idea, the enlistment of play for the 
building of character. 



CHAPTER V 
THE STORY AGE 

The Child's Imagination. We have already seen how the 
child's play is directed and made real by his imagination, so 
real indeed that the Hne which divides fact from fancy is 
often lost entirely. The child, like the poet, is indeed of 
imagination all compact. There are no such things as mir- 
acles to him, for in order to recognize a miracle one must 
have had much experience and must know the laws of nature 
that have been transcended. The child, however, knows 
almost nothing of the world and its organization. He is 
surrounded with mysteries; every waking hour brings some 
new marvel. It is no more unreasonable to him that there 
should be fairies, and Santa Claus with flying reindeer, and 
Jack the Giant Killer with sky-reaching beanstalk, than it 
is that there should be birds and bears and a thousand 
varieties of men and women. The very little child believes 
everything, and why should he not? He has no standards 
yet of measurement. Everything to him is marvelous, but 
everything is possible; he lives in constant wonder in a 
borderland of mystery. He deals solely with objects; the 
immaterial is incomprehensible to him. His mind as yet 
can work only by making combinations of what he has 
seen and heard — ^kaleidoscopic pictures, but all the com- 
binations seem real to him however grotesque they may be 
to the mature mind. The great, shapeless cloud in the west 
is the giant that Jack killed, or it is a flock of lambs; the 
moon has a real man in it, put there because he has been 
naughty; snowflakes are caused by God sweeping heaven; 
and toadstools are really seats for the toads and the fairies. 

The Realm of Fancy. Children differ widely in this power 
of imagination, but the child is rare indeed who does not 
project himself more or less into the realm of the unreai. 
It is from this side of his nature that many child fears arise. 
The whistling of the wind, the moving of shadows, the roll- 

33 



34 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

ing of dark clouds, and such like often cause real terror. 
The child is standing precisely where the race once stood. 
The savage is a child of fears; his imagination supplies what 
his ignorance cannot, and he therefore stands in terror before 
many of the ordinary phenomena of nature. Superstition 
is but another name for the fancies and fears of the child- 
hood of the race carried down to us by tradition. It is for 
this reason that the child absorbs so eagerly all of his parents' 
superstitions; they are natural to his stage of development 
and they soon become laws not to be questioned. At first 
the child's fancy is lawless and wild. It simply interprets 
the unknown in terms of the little round of facts and objects 
that are known, and the results are therefore often startling. 
The stars are the eyes of angels, the butterfly is a live pansy, 
ice is water gone to sleep, rain is God taking a shower bath. 
Everything is minutely objective; it is given local habitation 
and color and form. In my childhood every story that I 
read was located in actual places about my home, and the 
characters were real persons whom I knew. 

As the child grows older his imagination becomes more 
and more orderly and creative. He now indulges in day- 
dreams. He is himself Robinson Crusoe on a desert island, 
or Alice in Wonderland, or Cinderella surrounded by fairy 
godmothers and princes and enchanters. 

The Story "World. This power of childhood to project itself 
with reality into the realm of the unreal has produced much 
of the world's poetry and romance. Myth and folklore 
belong to the childhood of races, as does also much of poetry. 
"The light that never was on sea or land" is the natural 
atmosphere of childhood. Every child is measurably a poet; 
he sees things with poetic eyes. "If we let the child alone," 
says Compayr^, "and if education did not come in to put 
reason into his fancies, we should see him creating a new 
and complete mythology." But the child is not let alone, 
and for that reason his actual creation of fanciful things 
ceases early, but not so his intense enjoyment of the myths 
and marvels created by others. "Childhood," declares E. 
B. Bryan, "is the time to use myth and narrative history. 
. . . Myth offers a splendid opportunity to introduce the 
child to many of the forces and passions, hopes and fears, 



THE STORY AGE ' 35 

victories and defeats that have made the world what it is." 
Childhood, then, whether it be of a race or of an individual, 
is the story age, the period when fancy dominates reason. 
The imagination in this golden time plays with iridescent 
hues about every episode, and then adds it with vivid dis- 
tinctness to the gallery of memory. The story thus becomes 
one of the most important aids in the education of children. 

Teaching by Stories* The theory that the child repeats 
during his development all the various stages in the evolution 
of the race is now generally admitted, and as a result the 
courses in the public schools have of late years been much 
modified. If we are to follow the paths laid out by nature, 
we shall educate the young child largely through the imagina- 
tion by means of carefully selected story material. More 
and more are intelligent school boards introducing myth 
and folklore into the primary courses. It is the natural 
food for infancy. Nothing else so gains the attention of the 
child. During the story hour the discipline of the school 
maintains itself; the hearers hang breathless upon the words 
of the teacher, and the impression made is deep and lasting. 
The story enlarges the child's world; it gives new images for 
his fancy; it is realistic — a section from life dealt with ob- 
jectively; it presents wholes and not unrelated parts; it 
goes directly home; and if it has been well chosen it em- 
phasizes some high ideal. It was the favorite method ' of 
Jesus, the greatest teacher who ever lived. His discourses 
were made up almost wholly of simple stories; the prodigal 
son, the man who went on a journey, the good Samaritan, 
are perfect stories, judge them by whatever laws you may. 
There is very little of comment or of moralizing attached to 
them, but they were listened to eagerly, they were under- 
stood, and they carried their moral lessons. The* primary 
teacher of to-day can do no better than to study the stories 
of Jesus. 

"With the Beginners' Department of the Sunday school the 
story is all-important. One can do little with any other 
method. The memorizing of unrelated texts which the 
children do not understand is pernicious in the extreme. 
Expounding or moralizing to young children is waste of 
time; the story indeed is the only avenue of approach through 



36 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

which truth can be brought with any degree of accuracy to 
their minds. 

The stories best adapted for telling to children under six 
are those which have to do with infancy and early life, such 
as stories of the child Jesus, the baby Moses, Jesus blessing 
little children, the boy Jesus in the temple, the boy Samuel, 
the boyhood of Joseph, and the youth of David. 

Old Testament Stories. Fortunately, the question as to 
what stories to tell need never trouble the Sunday school 
teacher. In the Bible we have the most wonderful storehouse 
of effective stories to be found in the whole literature of the 
world. Secular writings have been ransacked in vain to 
find for the public schools anything which is better. The 
narratives of the Old Testament are peculiarly fitted for 
childhood ; they have the mythlike element and even the 
folklore which childhood can so easily appreciate. The child 
is interested chiefly in life — most of all human life presented 
objectively. He follows with absorbed interest the adven- 
tures of others, and as he grows older he projects himself 
into the lives of those about whom he reads or hears. Hence 
his stories must be carefully chosen; they will color his life. 
Dr. Dawson has summed the matter up in this way: 

"The Old Testament abounds with spectacular scenes, 
such as the fight between David and Goliath, and Daniel in 
the lion's den; thrilling stories, such as those associated with 
the lives of Moses and Joseph; and heroic characters, such as 
Abraham and David. There is throughout a combination of 
scenic splendor, striking episodes, and unique personalities 
that impresses the senses most vividly and appeals to the 
love of dramatic action. The method is that of the primitive 
mind, which seizes upon the sensuous and the dramatic, 
rather than the rational and reflective elements of life and 
religion. Here, therefore, we find a parallelism between the 
development of the child and the development of the Bible." 

Simply to mention the leading characters of the Bible is 
to call to mind stories of absorbing interest: Esther, Ruth, 
Peter, Paul in shipwreck and prison, Elijah, John the Bap- 
tist, Solomon, Noah — no other teacher has such a fascinating 
treasure-house to draw upon as he who unfolds the Word of 
God. The primary department should have the simple 



THE STORY AGE yj 

biographies of these Old Testament worthies told as interest- 
ingly as possible; the preadolescent classes should be given 
the adventure and the heroism stories, but from a little before 
the age of thirteen on until the dawn of maturity the utmost 
emphasis should be placed upon those stories of love, of 
sacrifice, of divine heroism, of temptation resisted through 
inward power, which are the soul of the New Testament. 
The stories of the earlier periods are but preparatory to this 
culminating era ^*n the child's moral life. 

Stories Enlarge the Child's Moral Horizon, The story 
takes the child into the lives of others; it teaches him to see 
life from another person's standpoint. The boy, for instance, 
who has read any of Thompson-Seton's stories will be less 
cruel to the smaller animals. He has seen life from their 
point of view. It is only by using the imagination rightly 
that one learns unselfishness. Then, again, from carefully 
presented story material comes reverence — a thing that 
seems woefully neglected in these latter days — respect for 
law, for the aged, for the noble, and for the good. If the 
child is told rightly the old Bible stories, and is told them 
often enough, he cannot fail to reach in time the very highest 
levels of loyalty and love and reverence. 

"To any children brought up in the atmosphere of such 
stories as the Round Table legends, or Scott's novels or 
poetry, the word 'loyalty' does not have to be explained. A 
train of pages, squires, knights, and nobles honoring their 
king makes a vivid picture full of life and color that glow 
in Abbey's frescoes of the Holy Grail. . . . Children love 
stories, and there are just as many stories of loyalty as there 
are heroes, martyrs, and saints in history — men who first 
grasped the idea of allegiance to some large truth, having 
recognized this truth in its relation, and by sympathetic 
understanding have entered into the spirit of this truth to 
hold it sacred and, if necessary, die for it."^ 

The child who has appreciated aright the call of Samuel, 
the bravery of David, the fearlessness of \Daniel, the loyalty 
of Jonathan, has received ideals that must inevitably have 
some bearing upon the formation of his character. 



* Louisa Lane McCrady. 



38 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

The Art of Story-TcIIing at its best is indeed rare. Not 
all can present a story to children so that it will not fall 
either below them or above them, but the fruits which faith- 
ful effort may bear make it richly worth the while to try to 
learn. .The story should be made very much of in Sunday 
school teaching, especially with the younger classes. There 
is no more inspiring scene anywhere than a little circle of 
learners, their heads close to their teacher's, listening with 
all their souls to one of the old stories of lofty ideals from 
the pages of the Bible. To quote again from Dr. Hall : 

*T plead for a new profession — that of the story-teller 
in the Sunday school, who has practiced on the standard 
tales, told them to various grades, and had them told back 
again, until they are as well developed in his or her mind as 
the role of an actor in a play with a long run, who never 
loses rapport for an instant with his audience and can pre- 
estimate the value of every point or even 'gag' in it. Can 
we not have in the Sunday school these Bible bards, though 
each have only a small kit of stories, which they can tell 
from long practice better than anyone else? Rein makes, 
I think, thirty-six Old Testament stories about which he 
would have the third year of secular school life focus. Others 
make many more. The best test I know of in the teacher of 
young children is a power thus to catch and hold the atten- 
tion of her restless group, well compared to scores of corks 
in a wash tub to be kispt under water by a teacher who has 
but ten fingers. A good narrator can do almost anything 
with children. He can repeat the magic of the Pied Piper 
of Hamelin, who charmed them all from their homes by the 
incantation of his magic flute. Such a teacher has recovered 
for a world to which it was lost the true pipe of Pan."^ 



1 The Sunday School and Bible Teaching. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE CHILD'S STANDPOINT 

The Plane of the Learnen Dr. Gregory, in his admirable 
book, The Seven Laws of Teaching, gives as his third and 
fourth laws, "The language used in teaching must be com- 
mon to teacher and learner," and "The truth to be taught 
must be learned through truth already known." In other 
words, we must adapt ourselves to the one taught; we must 
not work above the plane of his experience and attainments 
— "we must begin where we find the child." This seems 
axiomatic and easy, yet nothing in the teacher's art is more 
difficult. How are we to put ourselves in the child's place 
and look at the lesson through his eyes? To succeed per- 
fectly is to be a Froebel or a Pestalozzi. The child is limited 
on every side — vocabulary, experience, knowledge of things, 
thinking capacity, power to deal with anything at all ab- 
stract. How are we to know when we are on the plane of 
his powers and attainments? He may look intelligent as we 
explain, he may follow with seeming eagerness, he may 
nod when asked if he understands, and yet he may not have 
caught a single idea that was intended. A knowledge of the 
child's capacities comes only through actual study of chil- 
dren, through long experience, through careful watching of 
individuals. 

Saxon "Words and Latin Words. To be on the same plane 
as the child one must first use the language that is "common 
to teacher and learner." The child's vocabulary is largely 
Saxon. It is well known to all that the English language 
contains two principal elements — the simple, original Saxon 
and the more learned Latin that came in after the Norman 
Conquest. During the two or three centuries when the 
two languages were blending into one, the Saxons were 
largely uneducated peasantry, and the Normans were the 
ruling class — the statesmen and lawyers and priests. Hence 
the language of the humble home, of the farm, of the shop, 

39 



40 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

and of common life generally, is to this day prevailingly 
Saxon, and the language of thought, of scholarship, of the 
professions, of the church, is full of the long Latin derivatives. 
The language of the child is almost exclusively Saxon. The 
objects about the home and the nursery, the few simple 
nouns and verbs and adjectives and connecting words that 
are needed about the fireside, have come down almost all of 
them from the Saxon peasant. It is only as the child gains 
in education and in mental power that he acquires the other 
element. The language of the church is saturated with 
Latin. Imagine children under ten listening to the average 
sermon — atonement, intercession, holiness, charity, reverence, 
justification, transgressor, reconciled, righteousness — no won- 
der many children detest preaching. What will the primary 
class get from even such simple texts as these: "The just 
shall live by faith," "Whosoever shall exalt himself 
shall be abased," "An inheritance incorruptible and 
undefiled, and that fadeth not away"? He who would teach 
children in the Sunday school must strip himself of his 
churchly vocabulary and come down to the simple Saxon 
of the home and the fireside. 

The Child's Vocabalary. Many studies have been made 
to determine the extent of the vocabularies of children, and 
the conclusions reached have varied all the way from the 
statement of Dr. Laurie that the child of eight uses in ordi- 
nary conversation not more than 150 words, to that of Mr. 
Salisbury, who found a boy of five and one half years with a 
vocabulary of 1,528 words. Such studies are not of much 
practical value, but many of them are suggestive. For in- 
stance, the vocabularies of the three children of Professor 
West, given entire in The Pedagogical Seminary (vol. ix), 
are found to be composed of 60 per cent of nouns and 20 
per cent of simple verbs, with practically no Latin deriva- 
tives. It is useless, however, to generalize about such mat- 
ters. The vocabulary depends largely on the home and the 
mother. Then, too, it does not always follow that because 
a child uses a certain word correctly he therefore understands 
it. It is safe to say only that the average child's vocabulary 
is small; that it is composed almost wholly of those simple, 
concrete objects and actions that make up the narrow world 



THE CHILD'S STANDPOINT 41 

of childhood, and that the abstract, that is, the mental and 
spiritual, will be almost entirely wanting. Failure to appre- 
ciate this has been one of the greatest faults of the primary 
teaching of the past. The grotesque misconceptions brought 
by children from Sunday school have furnished amusement 
in many a home. One little fellow reported that his class had 
sung "Bringing in the Sheets." "O, no," expostulated his 
mother, "it was sheaves." " 'Deed it wasn't; it was 'Bringing 
in the Sheets.' They sewed in the morning and they sewed 
at noon and they brought in the sheets at night." Miss 
Baldwin tells of a child who with perfect simplicity sang, 
"When we come from Jersey, bringing in the thieves." 
Another little boy when asked the Golden Text replied, 
"He that bumbles himself shall be a halter." 

From the Known to the Unknown. Not only must we 
adapt ourselves to the child's vocabulary but we must con- 
sider carefully the plane of his experience. Truth can be 
acquired only through truth already attained. We proceed 
always from the known to the unknown. It is useless to 
attempt to draw lessons from material about which the 
learner knows nothing. If the child has no knowledge of 
the processes of agriculture, the moral of the parable of the 
sower will be wholly lost upon him. The lesson must be 
interpreted into images and ideas taken from his own ex- 
perience. Jesus in his parables never once arose above the 
plane of his hearers. He taught them the truth about the 
kingdom of heaven in terms of sheep, wheat, tares, house- 
holders, vineyards, vines, branches, wedding feasts, wine 
fn old bottles, pearls, and such common things. There is no 
other way to teach. First, know your pupils, find common 
ground, then present the new in terms of the old. 

The Child's World. Only those who have investigated the 
matter can appreciate how small the child's world is. Dr. 
Hall some years ago conducted a series of experiments with 
Boston school children of about the age of six. His report 
is most suggestive. Thirty-five per cent had never seen the 
country; 47 per cent had never seen a pig; 18 per cent thought 
a cow was no larger than its picture; 20 per cent did not know 
where milk came from ; 5 5 per cent did not know that wooden 
things are made from trees; very many had not seen any of 



42 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

the various classes of laborers at work, or grain growing; 
13 per cent did not even know their cheek, and jaw, and 
throat. The country child's range of experience necessarily 
will be very different from that of these city children, but 
the gaps in his round of experience will be none the less 
wide. The experienced teacher must therefore continually 
be asking her class questions beginning with "How many 

of you have ever ?" She must scrutinize every word 

and idea from the standpoint of the little minds that are to 
receive it. At this point much of the blackboard work in- 
troduced into primary classes should be condemned. Lesson 
"helps" of the past have furnished many elaborate diagrams 
composed of crosses, crowns, hearts, ladders, stars, doves, 
and towers with alliterative words and rebuslike combina- 
tions. I have sometimes wished that for a moment I might 
become literally a child again and view these elaborations 
with the child's eye; they would become, I am sure, intricate 
combinations of color and object that could be interpreted 
by nothing in the content of my experience. But by intelli- 
gent sympathy and constant observation any teacher may 
soon acquire a knowledge of the projecting facts in the 
"world" of the children she loves; and she should use these 
— all of them: spoons, corks, medicine, buttons, pinpricks, 
books, slates, dolls — to help them in their thinking and their 
loving, as the Master used the terms familiar to his hearers. 
The Difficwity of Adaptation. There is even more danger 
of the misuse of material than there is of the misuse of words. 
We feel instinctively that hard words will not do for children, 
and half automatically we avoid them, but the round of life 
with its common objects and activities has become so ele- 
mentary to us that we are always forgetting ourselves before 
the children. It is indeed a rare soul who can make himself 
as a little child, who can see the lesson from the child's 
standpoint, and who can begin with the images and ideas in 
the child's mind and lead up to new images and ideas at a 
higher level. We must remember always that the only things 
the child vitally knows he knows through his experiences^ 
only by starting on the plane of the child's actual life can we 
guide him into an understanding of new truth. To do this 
is indeed to educate in the noblest way. 



THE CHILD'S STANDPOINT 43 

Below the Child's Level. It is as harmful to be too ele- 
mentary with the child as it is to be too abstruse. Children 
above the age of seven or eight will not be patronized. It 
is here that many preachers fail in their sermons to children; 
they insult the child's intelligence. The experience of a 
certain teacher who had been impressed with the limited 
world of childhood and who had begun to teach a class of 
boys as if they were infants is typical. "Chestnuts!" piped a 
voice, and there was bedlam at once. The teacher, however, 
saved the day by pulling from his pocket a chestnut that a 
kind Providence had placed there, and, with what was well- 
nigh genius, proceeded to establish a point of contact with 
it, by asking how it grew, etc. No pupils in the Sunday school 
resent patronage more than do boys and girls from nine to 
twelve — where the whole nature is filled with an intense 
admiration for adult life and a desire to be considered 
"grown-up," 

Some Final Suggestions. Study, then, your pupil and 
learn the extent of his vocabulary and, as far as possible, 
the content of his mind. Express your thoughts when you 
can in his own words. Be simple and natural. Avoid all 
Bible figures of speech that are expressed in images foreign 
to the child's world, and it is not always safe to use them 
even when every image is perfectly simple. Heaping coals 
of fire on an enemy's head has but one meaning to child- 
hood. Use short, uninvolved sentences with Saxon words 
as far as is possible, and if not instantly understood repeat 
in another way. When it is practicable supplement the story 
with good pictures, iet the work be cumulative; build oii 
last Sunday's lesson. Break away from text-book and lesson 
leaf and adapt the work directly to the individual child, 
interpreting it in images which he knows. Make him restate 
it in his own words. Review, and evermore review. Finally, 
keep on the plane of the learner: descend not below it, lest 
you insult his intelligence: work not above it, lest you 
throw your labor away 



CHAPTER VII 

INDIVIDUALITY 

The Dangers of Generalization. At this point it is well, 
perhaps, to pause a moment and consider a real source of 
danger to the young teacher. It is fatally easy to generalize 
and lay down sweeping laws. Pedagogical books and maga- 
zines are liable to create in the mind of the beginner the 
impression that the child can be analyzed and classified 
and tabulated like a flower by a botanist; that all children 
pass through certain well-defined stages, have certain in- 
stincts, manifest certain survivals of primitive characteris- 
tics, and so on. One must, however, work with caution. 
"The pedagogic phantom called 'the child' " may be real 
if one works by averages; but if one teaches an actual class 
of actual children he will find himself at once in the presence 
of concrete individuals, each of which seems to be an excep- 
tion to all laws. The voice of experience is always cautious. 
"Twenty years of more or less constant companionship with 
children," writes a very successful worker, "have made me 
realize that their widely differing natures are not easy to 
understand, and that generalizations about their training 
and growth are not likely to be of practical value; but so 
many years of wonderful friendship make me watch each 
new child with the interest one feels in the well-known char- 
acters of a familiar story. The child life repeats itself, only 
with the changes that come from changed conditions and 
surroundings." A study of the great laws of childhood is of 
the greatest value, nay, it is imperative if one is to become 
a well-equipped teacher; but one must guard himself against 
becoming a mere theorist or gaining the impression that 
teaching may be reduced to a matter of formulas. Child 
study from books is valuable, but it is only to be used as an 
introduction to the actual contact with actual children. 
Knowing the characteristics of the average child, one is 
prepared to deal intelligently with the individual. 

44 



INDIVIDUALITY 45 

Exceptions to the Rttle. For instance, we shall later show 
how childhood falls into certain periods, each with its own 
characteristics, but it must constantly be remembered that 
there are as yet no absolute laws concerning the matter. Says 
Dr. Ellis, one of the most careful of child observers: "There 
can be found no hard-and-fast lines in these stages of develop- 
ment; organisms do not grow in that way. A certain child 
may be partly in two or three of these stages at one time, 
skip some of them, even take others backward, or vary the 
sequence in many ways; yet this is the nearest we can now 
get to the normal order of development of a child. We 
need more and better study of children." 

The Individual Child. For the Sunday school teacher, 
however, the way is clear. He is to focus himself upon the 
individual child, not upon the child in the abstract. He is to 
touch and influence the individual soul, and not simply to 
stand before the mass and "shoot truth into it at long range, 
never knowing or seeing the unit." Each pupil is to be a 
problem by himself. A group of children is not like a flock 
of sparrows, each member of which is precisely like all the 
others. The individual child is unique; he has that inde- 
finable something that we call personality; he is not like even 
his own twin brother. That two boys are each ten years 
old does not necessarily associate them together. One of them 
may be morbidly self-conscious, the other may be totally 
self-unconscious; one may be quiet and dreamy, the other 
headlong and boisterous; one may spend every possible 
moment in reading, the other may detest books. Children 
may be of the same age, yet may be years apart in their 
powers to grasp moral lessons, and, indeed, in all of their 
capacities. Hence the need of personal adaptation. 

Types of Children. To some teachers there are only two 
types of children : the good and the bad ; to others there are 
three: the stupid, the inattentive, and the mischievous. The 
classifications, indeed, are almost as many as the classifiers. 

Were it not for this dissimilarity in individuals a class of 
twenty learning like one would be the usual thing. But there 
are bright, alert pupils on one end, and stupid, sleepy ones 
on the other, and inattentive ones between. Shall the class 
keep at the pace of the slowest? If so, the bright ones are 



46 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

invited to mischief. But can we neglect the slow ones? 
"Strike an average," says the wise teacher; but that is not 
an easy thing to do. "The ideal of class management," says 
one, "and of collective teaching is to use the stronger pupils 
to help the weaker," but this must be done with tact. There 
are other elements. There is the timid child, the bashful 
child, the self-conscious child, the awkward child. There is 
the boy who is "smart," the boy who poses as a wag, the boy 
who "shows off." There is the perverse type and the sullen 
type, the asker of irrelevant questions and the voluble talker 
whose tongue seems to be set on a hair trigger. There is the 
bashful country child and the glib city child. There is the 
girl with her "chum," the girl with her new ring, and the girl 
who giggles and cannot stop. And all these may be in the 
same class. "Child study" learned from a book begins to 
seem like a broken. reed to the new teacher. He is in the 
presence of the concrete individual, and not of that shadowy 
phantom "the child," and he must fall back upon his own 
resources. His success will depend largely upon himself and 
his own observations. 

The Small Class* It is on this account that the small class 
is of such importance. Children must be taught not in large 
masses but individually, so as to take advantage of per- . 
sonality and type peculiarity. The Primary Department 
is to be divided into sections of about six, and each section 
^°s to be given to an individual teacher. In no other way can 
the pupil be adequately reached. The teacher of such a 
division can know each of her six like a mother. She can 
visit them in their homes, learn their life, talk with their 
teacher in the public school, get acquainted with their 
enthusiasms, and can adapt herself as she could under no 
other conditions. Most classes are too large. When they 
are all together there is present a mass spirit that is not 
to be found in any one of the individuals when alone. 
One practical teacher observed that when he had ten boys 
in his class he could not get one of them to answer a question 
properly, but when only two were present they entered en- 
thusiastically into the spirit of the lesson. Boys especially 
are afraid of each other ; they are afraid some one will laugh 
and taunt them when they get outside. The best way to 



INDIVIDUALITY 47 

counteract this is to make the class small. Each member 
must be studied personally. It is not for the teacher to cram 
education into their heads, but to start correct habits of 
doing and thinking. Here is a child who needs most of 
all proper supervision of his reading; here is another who 
needs sympathy; here is still another who must be taught 
lessons to counteract his cruelty or irregularity or heedless- 
ness. We are to take the personality of the child and direct 
it aright. If a boy in a whole year learns nothing save that 
the Sunday school is the place for clean hands, the year has 
done some good. With the shiall class the teacher can suit 
every word to the need of the individual. He can enter 
into the very life of his pupil. Two little girls may be 
"chums," the boy may be making a collection of stamps, 
another may have parents who would be glad to cooperate, 
the little girl may have a new doll that is to her as her very 
soul, there may be a new baby brother, or God may have 
entered the home and taken the baby away, and the little 
heart may be breaking. The teacher of thirty children could 
not know these things, but the teacher of six knows them 
and she uses her opportunity. And the results of such heart- 
to-heart teaching Avho may estimate? 

Sympathy the Keynote* After all, sympathy is the secret 
of success with children. The need of sympathy is ingrained 
into the child's life. "See, mamma, how I do it," cries the 
child many times a day. What are new toys and new 
shoes if they cannot be shown with glee to everyone who 
comes in? "Listen," says Herbert Spencer, "to the eager 
volubility with which every urchin describes any novelty he 
has been to see, if only he can find some one who will attend 
with any interest." It is sympathy that draws children to- 
gether. It is the secret of "chum" friendships. "S^^mpa- 
thizing with each other, confiding in each other, coming into 
the closest touch with each other's inmost nature, chums 
exert a profound interest upon the whole life and character 
of each other." It binds boys together into unions and teams. 
It is the natural atmosphere of childhood. It dies, if it ever 
does die, only through repeated rebuffs and betrayals of 
confidence, and constant living in the narrow world of self- 
ishness. The parent too often repels the child. He is too 



48 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

busy to heed the boy's simple projects. The mother may 
at times pay no attention to the repeated calls for admira- 
tion of some exploit, and at last look up to speak harshly.- 
Such things wound more deeply than we realize. The true 
teacher will give from his whole heart the sympathy re- 
quired. He will try to piit himself into the child's place 
mentally and emotionally, and will thus gain in the simplest 
way real power over the little life. And he will receive sym- 
pathy in return, for children are little mirrors that reflect 
even more than they receive. 

Making the Lesson PracticaL And, finally, it is by coming 
into close contact with the individual child, by sympathizing 
with him and gaining his confidence, and by studying his 
nature and surroundings and development, that one may 
inculcate in him at last the great principles of unselfishness 
and service to others and love in the divine sense. But the 
work must be ever with the individual rather than with the 
group. By story and precept and practical example the 
child may be taught to do for others because it is blessed so 
to do. Froebel taught us that the life]of faith and love comes 
only through personal activity. No one sitting passive is 
ever talked into the kingdom of heaven; there must be doing. 
The teacher must suggest little deeds to be done during the 
week. Birthdays and holidays are to be made glad occasions 
for doing for others. Without moralizing or preaching the 
teacher should tell simple stories of unselfish lives: of the 
monks of Saint Bernard, of the life-savers on the coast, of 
simple little episodes in the child's own world. "Children," 
says Mrs. Harrison, "delight to be told that their hands and 
feet and bodies can tell their love as well as their tongues. 
A little girl came to me one morning saying, 'My hands loved 
you yesterday.' 'Did they?' I said. 'Tell me about it.' 
'Our baby tore my mat, and I was just going to slap her, but 
I thought of you and I didn't.' This explanation was given 
without the slightest thought of commendation for the self- 
control exercised, and was passed over by me as a thing of 
course in one of my children who really loved me" This is 
practical teaching ; this is training which turns the life into the 
proper channels, and prepares the ground for that vital period 
when awakening comes and the new life of the spirit begins. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION 

The Child "World. As we have already shown, the child 
before the "storm and stress period" which begins at about 
the twelfth or thirteenth year lives a life that is very near 
to the material world. He looks not in but out. He ques- 
tions not of the future; the present is all-absorbing. He has 
not yet thought to ask why he is in the world, or whence he 
came, or whither he is bound. 

A simple child, 
That lightly draws his breath, 
And feels his life in every limb, 
What should he know of death? 

Life is sufficient for him, without a thought of its imper- 
fections. He is in a great wonderland, asking questions 
about all that he sees, getting acquainted with his environ- 
ment, testing with glee his indefatigable limbs, and taking for 
granted as absolute truth everything that he sees and hears. 
The material present surroundings, parents, brothers, sisters, 
home, school, chums, animals, things, absorb him. All is 
tremendously vivid and real; its richness and wonder stimu- 
late his imagination and fancy ; life is a swift maze of moving 
pictures. Everything is intense: there are no joys and no 
griefs like those of childhood. Everything, even God, must 
be settled in terms of the known. There are no spiritual 
compensations; right and wrong are understood only as 
they are connected with things that must and that must 
not be done. There is no far in the world; it is all near. 
There is no by and by; it is all now. There is no abstract; 
it is all concrete. Practical ethics, duty, restraint, law, 
obedience, and the like, he may learn something of, since 
they touch the plane of his experience, but everything con- 
nected with the real life of the spirit is for the next stage 
of his development. 

49 



50 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

The God of Childhood. Mankind has a spiritual nature 
as real and definite as is the mental or the physical nature. 
Something within the human soul cries out for a God to 
worship. Every child comes into this world with needs 
which soon develop into spiritual hunger. Children every- 
where take naturally to the idea of God. God is a thing, of 
course, though the thought of God must be grasped, like 
every other thought, in the concrete. He must visualize 
his idea of God as he does his image of the President, and of 
Santa Claus, Sometimes he is a great man like papa or 
grandpapa, only greater: but often the conception is very 
vague. 

In many older people there is the survival of an image of 
God more or less dim which they call up when they close 
their eyes and pray. It comes from the childhood period. 
God and heaven are for most of us above our heads in the 
skies. Professor Street, who made a careful study to deter- 
mine at what age children began to think of God not as a 
great man but as a spirit, concluded that the average age 
was fifteen for boys and fourteen for girls. This concrete 
God of childhood is far different from that of later years. 
He is looked upon without awe; and' is sometimes addressed 
familiarly without any conscious irreverence, and is even 
"teased" to grant desired requests. It is as easy for the 
child to be taught to pray to God as it is for him to be taught 
to ask his father and mother for what he needs. The Love 
and Fatherhood of God may be brought very near to the 
little one; the idea lies completely within his world. He will 
not, of course, understand God in the spiritual sense until 
he reaches adolescence, and may, therefore, miss the very 
essence of God, yet he should be taught to pray regularly 
to him, for this is the period of habit forming, and prayer 
should be a habit. Moreover^ the child who prays regularly 
for papa and mamma and sister is learning the elements of 
the unselfish life. Habitual prayer to God is the starting 
point of spiritual religion. 

"Where Religion Begins. It is natural for childhood to take 
things at face value and to have confidence 'n everybody and 
everything. The child is open, frank, unsuspicious. He is 
an optimist; he is full of the purest faith and love: and he is 



THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION 51 

an honest seeker after truth. The sweetness and beauty of 
the Christ are in the Httle child — "of such --s the kingdom of 
God." And he keeps to a large degree this childhood inno- 
cence until adolescence comes with its storms which bring 
doubt and fear and suspicion and turmoil. Hence in the 
child's very nature we find hints as to how to deal with him. 
He seeks truth; give him truth, but bring it in terms that 
he can understand. If he asks for what is unknown, tell him 
honestly that it is unknown. Dogmas and creeds and gen- 
eralizations about the spiritual life are utterly beyond him; 
tell him of the simple things of God's world and the love 
which is written large in them all. Feed his optimism with 
the spirit of Browning's "God's in his heaven; all's right with 
the world." Use Christ constantly as the model. All "Be 
good-and-you-will-be-happy" moralizing cast away as worse 
than useless. It will only furnish food for doubt when the 
adolescent period comes. Do not preach; teach. Show how 
God expects positive action; obedience, love, self-restraint, 
unselfishness. Use the Bible constantly. Tell its simple 
stories over and over. Bring out the sense of reverence, and 
the mysterious feeling of "something deep in the soul, of 
which our intelligence alone can give no adequate expres- 
sion." Even childhood may feel this. 

"Froebel looked back to the early days of humanity to 
find out how religion began, and in what it consisted. He 
used what he found as a guide for the earliest 3^ears of the 
child. He did not. of course, find any catechisms and dog- 
mas. It seemed to him that the beginnings of all true and 
ever-progressive religion lay in the feeling of community, in 
love and wonder, the religion of fear having, oh the whole, 
steadily dwindled and lost ground. He begins, then, with 
love in the family, which is to be gradually widened more 
and more. *The child's worship,' he said, 'is the feeling and 
practice of love.' . . . Froebel delights in leading the child 
back step by step till he is face to face with some wonder 
or mystery of nature or life. Who makes the com grow? 
Who taught the bird to build its nest? What causes the wind 
to blow?" 

The Child and the Spiritaal Life. Beyond these simple 
steps of Froebel the child is not prepared to go. His views 



52 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

of life are primitive. He is ignorant, incapable of making 
distinctions, credulous. He has little power to generalize 
or to deal v/ith anything abstract. "To him," says Oi^pen- 
heim, "there is no inherent and reasonable distinction be- 
tween falsehood and truth. He naturally inclines to super- 
stition because its beliefs titillate his wonder-loving cast of 
mind. Without the restraints which mental maturity in- 
sures, he is bound to fall into errors that his untried powers 
are sure to cause." We should work steadily toward the 
attainment at the earliest possible age of experimental 
religion, but as a rule it is hazardous to call for "professions" 
before the twelfth year. Inculcate habits, teach obedience 
to law, dwell on the father-love of God and the brother-love 
of Christ, foster the spirit of reverent inquiry which most 
children have at this age, give object lessons; but never force 
experiences. The conversion period is ordained by God 
himself. The great majority of all conversions, as will be 
shown in a future lesson, come during adolescence, not 
very far from the age of fourteen. To force conversions 
before ten or twelve is as unnatural as to force a child into 
the duties and responsibilities of maturity. 

Nevertheless, many individual children do make decisions 
before twelve — a fact that illustrates how dangerous a thing 
it is to attempt to teach en masse. Each individual soul, 
like each indiv dual mind and body, develops in its own way: 
may we not say, in God's way ? We should keep in mind, also, 
that m the charts which record for us the results of the most 
careful observations on religious development in childhood, 
there is at the age of twelve a decided curve. That is the 
first great yiear of spiritual awakening, although, as we have 
just said, the climax seems in most cases not to be reached 
until about fourteen. 

Seed-Sowing and N«rt«re. In the earlier grades of the 
Sunday school, then — up, indeed, to the adolescent age — 
the true work of the teacher is seed-sowing and nurture. 
The child in these grades, taught simple lessons in goodness 
adapted to his age, properly guarded and trained, carefully 
exercised in love and obedience, is truly religious. The great 
duty of the teacher is to cultivate the tender soil, to keep 
removed (so far as possible) the weeds of error, to strengthen 



THE BEGINNI\TGS OF RELIGION 53 

good habits and check bad ones, to dwell ever on doing good, 
on acting lovingly and rightly, to show that mere words are 
nothing without deeds; in short, to inculcate practical Chris- 
tian ethics, and to be ready constantly with new ideas along 
the plane of the child's experience. 

It is a serious mistake to measure the success of the re- 
ligious teaching of children by their early "profession of 
religion," especially as early as between the ages of seven 
and ten. Dr. McFarland tells of a primary teacher who 
confessed to him that her greatest trouble was from good 
people who came to her asking, "Have these little children 
had any change of heart?" He replied, "The next time peo- 
ple come to you asking, 'Have these little children had any 
change of heart?' do you say to them that you are laboring 
and praying seven days in the week to prevent them from 
having any change of heart." The truth he sought to ex- 
press had been uttered centuries before by the Master, "Let 
the little ones come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of 
heaven." Jesus did not mean that they were perfect, or 
that they had what would pass in some modern churches as 
a "religious experience"; he meant that the one thing needed 
for them was the removal by older Christians of everything 
that might keep the children from him. To train children 
in practical goodness and to keep open the way to God — 
this is to nurture true religion; this is to get ready for what 
surely is coming. For every child the breaking period is at 
hand; it is written in the child's very life; he cannot escape 
it; and the outcome will depend very largely upon the early 
years of preparation. 



CHAPTER IX 
THE PRE-ADOLESCENT PERIOD 

The Stjbdivisions of Childhood. Most child students agree 
that the period called "childhood" falls into what are 
really four distinct subdivisions/ each with its own pe- 
culiar characteristics: (i) infancy, which extends to about 
the eighth year; (2) boyhood and girlhood, the pre-adolescent 
period, which extends to about the twelfth or thirteenth 
year; (3) youth, the early adolescent period, which extends 
to the seventeenth or eighteenth year; (4) young manhood 
and womanhood, later adolescence, which ends about the 
twenty-fifth year. So great are the changes during these 
periods that the child seems to pass through transforma- 
tions almost as marked as those in the life of the butterfly. 
His entire nature seems to be re-created two or three times. 
More than once his whole horizon changes. The infant is in 
the age of myth and story ; the boy and girl are in the era of 
biography and history; the youth has reached the stage of 
literature and morals; the young man and woman are on 
the plane of religion and ethics. These are the four stages in 
the history not only of each individual, but also of mankind. 

The Age of Infancy* We have already devoted to the 
study of the earlier years of childhood all that is necessary. 
In the Sunday school it is the age of the Beginners' Depart- 
ment (up to the age of six) and of the Primary Department 
(which includes the ages of six, seven, and eight). It is the 
age of the object-lesson and the simple old story told to 
illustrate the goodness and the nearness and the love of God, 
or of the beauty of the man Jesus who loved little children, 
of the impressing of the fundamental principles of reverence 
and truth and obedience and self-control. It is the golden 



^ These are the divisions on which the grading of the Sunday school is 
based. The first includes the Beginners' and Primary; the second repre- 
sents the Junior; the third the Intermediate; and the fourth the Senior; 
beyond this the Adult. 

54 



THE PRE-ADOLESCENT PERIOD 55 

period for making deep impressions. It is the joyous spring- 
time, the season for sowing seed. There is no more fascinat- 
ing field open to human endeavor than that which Hes along 
the wonder-haunted meadows and the sweet uplands of 
this ever new world of infancy. The young child is a being 
forever new and forever wonderful. He 

Cometh from afar, 

Not in entire forgetf illness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 
From God, who is our home. 

The child is indeed a bit of the kingdom of heaven. He is 
artless and unaffected ; he is willingly dependent ; he thinketh 
no evil; he has faith in all things; he loves as the sun shines 
and he tells his love with perfect unconsciousness; he is 
spontaneous and enthusiastically optimistic. It is the child 
alone that keeps the world sweet and hopeful. Without 
childhood the race would drift into pessimism and hatred 
and despair. 

The Second Stage. Although infancy and adolescence 
have of late years been studied carefully in all their phases 
by psychologists and child students, the transition between 
the two, those important years between seven or eight and 
twelve, has received comparatively little attention. It is 
the age that knows nothing of nerves, that tracks mud over 
clean floors, that litters rooms, that ignores the proprieties 
and neighbors' rights, and that seems to exist but for the 
single purpose of having "fun" and making noise and mis- 
chief. The small bad boy of fiction, the boy who hides under 
the sofa to appear at critical moments, who discloses em- 
barrassing facts, and perpetrates startling practical jokes, 
belongs to this age. He is regarded by his own parents very 
often with impatience, and he is more than likely rated by 
some neighbors as a nuisance. Even at the Sunday school 
he has been neglected. In the primary room he had, as a 
general thing, the best teachers the school could afford; he 
had chairs which fitted him, and he had quiet. The room, 
too, was beautiful and was supplied with pictures and 
charts and blackboards and materials for object-lessons. 



56 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

But at nine conies a total change. In very many schools he 
is thrust out into the hum and distraction of the large room. 
He is perched on a pew with his feet dangling, he is given, 
in place of the primary stories and the object-lessons which 
he enjoyed, a lesson paper which he does not fully under- 
stand, and in almost every case he is given a teacher inferior 
to the one he has left, often, indeed, one who has been 
dragged into the work knowing very little of boys except that 
they are "always bad." Hence his class is liable to be the 
most wriggling and whispering and giggling and irresponsible 
class in the large room, to be frowned upon and lectured and 
threatened. 

Physical Changes. The pre-adolescent age begins during 
the first period of accelerated growth. For a year or two 
the boy and girl shoot up rapidly; they are growing too fast 
to do much of anything else. Then the period of the second 
dentition brings a change. There is an arrest in the rate of 
growth and often a disturbance of the general health. Nu- 
trition is often disturbed; the child may be lacking four or 
five teeth at one time. For nervous, delicate children it is 
often a period of crisis . ' ' Physical fatigue and mental fatigue, 
heart trouble, and nervous symptoms of various kinds are 
likely to occur at the stage in child life marked by the seventh 
and the ninth years." Such children must not be over- 
tasked at home or at school. In many ways the child of this 
period is unbalanced : the brain at eight has almost reached 
its full size, though the body is scarcely one third of what 
it is to be. It must not be gathered, however, that pre- 
adolescent children are all delicate. Girls during the grow- 
ing period are often healthier than ever before or after in 
their lives, and boys are often more robust than some people 
wish they were. 

Boys and Girls* At about the age of nine there is a change 
in the attitude of the sexes toward each other. In the 
primary room boys and girls were practically the same; 
it was the period of perfect sex-unconsciousness. Now, how- 
ever, the two elements tend to separate. The boy has a 
growing contempt for girls: "She's only a girl," "She can't 
do anything." The girls in turn begin to look on the boys as 
"Horrid things," "Those awftil, rough boys'" Pre-adolescence 



THE PRE-ADOLESCENT PERIOD 57 

is sex-repellent. Boys often seem to take a malicious delight 
in teasing girls and pulling their hair and taunting them with 
nicknames. It is never wise to send a mixed class from the 
primary room. From nine years of age and upward the 
sexes should be taught in separate classes. There can never 
be unity of work with boys and girls in the same class. The 
teacher to make any impression must devote himself to one 
and neglect the other. A few years later the sexes will be- 
come too conscious of each other's presence to do really good 
work in the same class. 

The Enlarging "World. The infant is dependent and home- 
centered; the growing boy and girl are increasingly inde- 
pendent. The youngster is no longer content to be led; 
he draws away his hand instinctively. There are absorbing 
interests now outside of the home circle. The boy begins 
to hear of "mollycoddles," and babies "tied to their mothers' 
apron strings." Play to be enjoyed to the full must now be 
cooperative. Boys and girls gather into groups for their 
games as inevitably as sheep gather into flocks. The group 
more and more dominates the child's thought. He is 
impatient until he is out with the others. Friendships begin, 
and strong attachments caused by propinquity and by mu- 
tual interests and sympathies. It is the age of "chums." 
Two girls or two boys after playing much together tend to 
become almost inseparable. They share each other's thoughts 
and secrets and ideals; they understand each other; they 
sacrifice many things for each other. With the enlarging 
of the horizon there comes also a keen desire to know more 
of the world, to own things, to secure samples, and label 
them and arrange them. It is the collecting period. Be- 
tween the years of eight and twelve "collections reach their 
height in quantity and genuineness." The objects collected 
are most commonly stamps, butterflies and beetles, marbles, 
postmarks, postcards, cigar tags, shells, buttons, silks, and 
birds' eggs. The instinct should not be frowned upon; it 
should be directed. Collections for a Sunday school cabinet 
may be made; a collection of pictures really valuable may 
be secured, and various other Bible illustrative material. The 
teacher too may draw constantly for illustrative material 
upon the child's collections at home. 



58 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

The Beginning of Grottp Games. The closing years of in- 
fancy are marked by the beginnings of what may be called 
the "group games." The girl seeks companions with whom 
to play housekeeping or doll nursing. ("The doll passion 
seems to be strongest between seven and ten and to reach 
its climax between eight and nine.") The boy between seven 
and twelve plays various imitative games which require 
cooperation, like storekeeping or church, but his chief delight 
is in those group plays which demand action, like tag, horse, 
ball, prisoner's base, "stumps," and the like, all compara- 
tively simple. There is no permanent organization — the 
ball team is improvised for the occasion, and disbanded as 
easily as formed. The play is individual; each one is for 
himself. Team play, permanent gang organization, sacrifice 
plays, and the like are for the next period in the boy's life. 
The game must be played rightly, however; the rules are 
like the laws of nature, and there raust be honesty and fair- 
ness and certainty. The boy throws his whole body and soul 
into the play, and he reveals himself completely. Often a 
teacher may learn more of her pupil by watching him play 
in the yard for ten minutes than she could have learned by 
studying him in the school for ten days. So large a part in 
the boy's life cannot be passed over unnoticed by the teacher. 
Play and fun are not necessarily things to be disciplined out 
of the Sunday school boy. They are to be directed to useful 
ends. Whenever it is possible work should be made to seem 
like play. He was a wise father who, when he wanted his 
boys to help him throw in the wood, said, "That post is a 
bear; let's see who can hit him the most times." Play in its 
usual forms is manifestly impossible in the Sunday school 
room, but the spirit of play is not. There may be rivalry in 
finding books of the Bible or specified verses; there may be 
competition as to who shall tell the story most accurately; 
and there may be constant drawing upon the details of play 
to illustrate points in the lesson and to teach fundamental 
ideals of justice and obedience and love. 

Child Ideals. From the group and the play instincts it is 
but a step to the hero-worship side of childhood. There is 
an increasing demand now for history and biography. The 
stories that please the child now are no longer myths and 



THE PRE-ADOLESCENT PERIOD 59 

wonders, but the adventures of actual heroes. Stories of peril 
and rescue, of action, and of heroism hold the boy and the 
girl fascinated. The hero is the center of interest to be 
, idealized and imitated and dreamed over. At first the 
child's ideal is some one who has come into his little world: 
when he grows up he .will be a stagedriver, or a policeman, 
or a drum major. In a college town the small boy's hero is 
the football captain or some favorite athlete. Barnes found 
that "half the children in the London Board schools at eight 
years old find their ideals in some local person in the home, 
in the school, or in the neighborhood." From this age on the 
child's reading more and more influences his choice of heroes. 
"Historic ideals," says Chambers, "increase in popularity up 
to the age of eleven or twelve and then gradually decline." 
This is a golden period for the Sunday school teacher. It is 
the time for impressing Bible biography. The Bible is full of 
heroes after the boy's own ideal, and they can be made to 
influence the young life. Says Dr. Gulick, "The boy whose 
life cannot be dominated by some hero, real or false, of a 
vigorous kind, seems to be the exception." Several studies 
tend to show that girls are impressed by heroes even as 
much as are boys. The teacher should dwell constantly on 
the nobler qualities of the heroes: their self-sacrifice, their 
trust in God, their honor and honesty and obedience, but 
he should not preach or moralize. He should tell the story of 
Samson, for instance, as if the failure of his life was a matter 
of course — as if any life that followed such ideals would be 
worthless; but he should not generalize or try to make per- 
sonal applications. The story should apply itself. 

The Reading Age. Most children derive their later ideals 
largely from their reading. The average girl has read Louise 
Alcott and the "Elsie" Books and others like them long before 
the age of twelve, and these have given her a whole scheme 
of life. The reading age begins about the eighth year. Dr. 
Lancaster found that "of 523 mature individuals 453 have 
had what might be called a craze for reading at some time 
in the adolescent period." And he goes on to remark: "It is 
the golden opportunity to cultivate the taste and inoculate 
against the worst forms of the reading habit. The curve of 
this intense desire to read begins at eight, rises to eleven, 



6o ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

and then rapidly from eleven to fourteen, culminates at 
fifteen, then falls rapidly, nearly reaching the base line at 
eighteen." The teacher should watch the reading of his class 
with the greatest care. A wise use of a well-selected Sunday 
school library may turn the whole life of a boy or a girl. 

Memory* Finally, the pre-adolescent period is the golden 
age of the memory. The years from eight to fourteen are 
the storehouse years. Language, poetry, facts, details, verbal 
forms — all are gathered now with an ease which the adult 
may well envy. "The best period for learning a foreign 
language ends before fourteen." This early memory, how- 
ever, is haphazard; it needs careful watching. The child, 
if he is let alone, will cram his memory as he crams his 
pocket. It should be the aim of the Sunday school teacher 
to furnish as far as is possible proper material for memorizing. 
Now is the time for filling the storehouse with the parts of 
the Bible that are within the child's comprehension: psalms 
like the first and the twenty-third, certain of the parables, 
the Ten Commandments, and the like. Hymns and poems 
are now to be memorized and frequently reviewed. Too 
much cannot be made of this precious seedtime; it comes 
but once in life. Teaching, however, must not be a mere 
memory cram and nothing else. There must be object- 
lessons and concrete applications, and much illustrative 
material. In another lesson we shall treat the memory, 
its use and abuse, with more detail. 



CHAPTER X 
THE EARLY ADOLESCENT PERIOD 

Adolescence* To quote the words of Dr. Thorndike, 
"There is, beginning at eleven or twelve in girls, thirteen or 
fourteen in boys, a period of abrupt transition both bodily 
and mental." "We are born twice," said Rousseau, "once 
to exist and again to live; once as to species and again as 
regard to sex." The change sometimes comes with sudden- 
ness. Yesterday the parent smiled at the child who spoke 
as a child and thought as a child; to-day he looks into the 
eyes of another being, one who has put away childish things. 
Not only is there great physical change — the voice, the 
powers, the strength of manhood and womanhood — ^but 
there is still greater mental and moral change. There is a 
breaking away and a readjustment; there is a hardening 
now of the plastic material of the earlier years. Acts and 
attitudes of mind have begun to petrify into habits. Where 
the tree falls now, there it will lie. 

The New Life. This change is so great that it may truly 
be called a revolution. The whole point of view of the life 
is shifted. The boy and the girl lived largely in the objective 
world; they were absorbed in their games; life was taken as 
the animals take it, as a matter of course. It was intensely 
real. Its griefs were tempestuous; its joys were whole- 
souled; its plans and enthusiasm reached not far beyond the 
bounds of the day; its absorption in the present was almost 
complete. But with adolescence comes the breaking away. 
The youth begins to be conscious of new powers. He feels 
"two natures struggling within" him. He catches glimpses 
now of the great abstract ideals of altruism, sacrifice, purity, 
holiness, faith, hope, love. He begins to ask the great ques- 
tions of what he really is and what he is to be. Ambition 
awakes. He begins to idealize life and to dream over it. 
It is the time of halos, of visions, of unbounded possibilities, 
of angels in disguise. 

6i 



62 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

The Gang and the Set. The incomprehensible longings, 
the dreamings, the emotions of this period are very often 
shared by chums. "There is a demand for sympathy that 
parents know nothing of." The friendship made in the 
earlier period deepens and broadens. Chums often share their 
rriost secret thoughts; they can give the mutual sympathy 
of comprehension and enter portals no one else may know. 
And the friendship is often real and lasting. Bonser found 
that of the "756 boys and 1,179 girls reporting, but 12.4 
per cent of the former and 16.6 per cent of the latter state 
that the friendship with their chums was broken." The 
longing for sympathy has a broader effect : it draws the boys 
into groups or "gangs" and the girls into "sets." "Birds of a 
feather flock together." Misunderstood by their elders, they 
seek the society of those who look at life from their own 
viewpoint. It is no longer the haphazard group of boyhood; 
it is the organized gang. This has its origin always in the 
purpose to do something: to play games, to have fun, to 
oppose another gang, or even to commit mischief and theft. 
It is often a secret organization with most awful vows and 
initiation ceremonies. "Of 1,034 responses of boys from ten 
to sixteen, 851 were members of such societies." The clan 
instinct seems natural to youth. It is often best for the 
Sunday school teacher to organize his class into a society after 
the youthful ideal. In many cases it is the only way that boys 
can be held in the school. There must, however, be week-day 
meetings as well as Sunday meetings, and there must be enough 
of ceremony to impress and satisfy the youthful mind. 

Team Play. There is a change, too, in the matter of games. 
The simple, primitive tag games no longer satisfy. The im- 
provised game of ball has lost its charm. There must be 
permanent organization; the team must have a name — "the 
Reds," "the Browns," "the West-Enders" — and there must 
be a captain and, if possible, a uniform. The boy no longer 
plays for himself alone; he plays for the team. He is willing 
to sacrifice himself, to take an inconspicuous place for the 
good of the whole. "Team work," "sacrifice plays," "inter- 
ference" are the topics of conversation. The youth is learn- 
ing the great lessons of self-control, of self-effacement, of 
altruism, of loyalty to others. 



THE EARLY ADOLESCENT PERIOD 63 

The Migratory Instinct. With the lofty aspirations and 
ambitions there comes a longing to go and to do. The hori- 
zon is tinged with violet; everything is possible. The books 
which have been read in the previous period have created 
a new heaven and a new earth for the young dreamer, and 
he longs to leave his narrow, humdrum environment and 
explore the wonderland beyond the hills. Especially is 
this true of girls, for the reason, perhaps, that being less 
active they brood more and build air castles and daydreams. 
Then, too, on the average, they read more than boys. The 
proportion of young boys and girls to whom has come a 
suggestion to run away from home is very large. Lancaster 
found that "of 403 adolescents, 253 (153 males, 100 females) 
had a desire to leave home and strike out for themselves, 
or, at least, found home less attractive" during this period. 
It is the age of truants. "Thirteen is the age when truancy 
is at its worst, fourteen being the average time in the United 
States when children quit school." "The desire to leave 
school," declares Lancaster, "together with a desire to leave 
home, is a true and natural impulse to adjust himself to the 
life which he is already living in his imagination in company 
with his ideals." The remedy is sympathy, not punishment. 
The Sunday school teacher must understand his boys and 
girls; must work from their point of view; and must give 
them, instead of the chiding and the humdrum advice they 
are so often given, real sympathy and love and help. And 
especially must he deal with them as individuals, each 
different from every other young person who ever lived. 
He must never permit the "average youth," whose qualities 
are set down in these lessons, to steal into the place in his 
mind and heart that should be occupied by the real John or 
Jennie of his class. 

Combativencss. The period of early adolescence is the 
fighting age. The boy must contest his pathway at every 
step. The young male is apt to smell the battle from afar; 
he threatens to "lick" the new boy as naturally as he breathes. 
If he is strong and robust, he fights at the slightest pretext 
or at no pretext at all. He bullies and teases those who are 
smaller than he and is regarded by his elders as a "terror." 
It is simply the demand of his nature for activity, for mas- 



64 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

tery, for iapplause : it is the animal within him. He is intoxi- 
cated with the new life, and the sense of power that pulses 
within him. A little later he will fight the boy who comes 
in any way between him and the girl he is "going with." 
The instinct is as primitive as the race itself. "In girls," 
says Haslett, "coquetry, enchantment, coyness, replace the 
combative and bravado spirit of the males in the struggle 
for a place in the affections of the opposite sex. At aboxit 
fotirteen, girls begin to make themselves interesting and 
attractive." This combativeness of the boy needs not 
repression but guidance. Says Dr. Balliet: "If you crush the 
fighting instinct, you produce the coward; if you let it grow 
wild, the brute. But if you link it with the higher instincts 
you get the man of executive ability and affairs." 

SeIf-Conscio«sncss» But the terror of the playground is 
more than likely to be pitifully ill at ease at any social gath- 
ering when he feels that the eyes of others are upon him. 
He is at the awkward age, when he is all hands and feet. 
In everything that he does he is self-conscious; he stammers 
and blushes. The child until he is ten or twelve takes part 
in the Children's Day exercises with delightful self -uncon- 
sciousness, but the youth had generally rather be whipped 
than appear on the program. It is cruelty to force him to 
take part. He is peculiarly sensitive to praise or blame. 
Dress and appearance begin to mean more and more to him. 
Boys and girls are much alike in this trait of self-conscious- 
ness. "At fourteen," says Katherine Dolbear, "a girl is large, 
awkward, restless, afraid to talk, especially with older people, 
desirous of dressing prettily, much affected by what her 
friends think and say, easily pleased and easily hurt, and is 
happy and sad at almost the same moments. She rebels at 
being kept at one thing too long, is quickly interested but 
just as quickly turned aside. ... At fifteen she is more at 
ease." Some boys lose their awkwardness in the presence of 
girls very quickly. Girls do not like bashful boys; hence 
there is every reason for the boy to overcome his shyness. 

The Period of Doabt. Up to twelve the child was con- 
tinually asking questions and believing all he heard. He 
took everything for granted : the rules of the ball game were 
as absolute as the laws of nature. But now the mind begins 



THE EARLY ADOLESCENT PERIOD 65 

to work for itself; it begins to question the why and the 
wherefore of that which until now has been taken for granted. 
In its new independence it thinks its own way quite as good 
as the old. The youth is very liable to refuse to be led longer. 
"He knows as much as his father and far more than his 
grandfather." He doubts the wisdom of the ages. He is an 
exception to all rules. He can touch pitch and not be defiled. 
"Benjamin Franklin doubted everything at fifteen." It is 
a period of peculiar danger, for the youth is bored by advice 
and he refuses to be led. It is now that the sowing of the 
earlier periods must be depended upon to bear its fruit. If 
the work of the home and the church and the Sunday school 
has been faithfully done, the danger is not great, but there 
is no period in life that is so full of hazard. "If the life is 
to be righteous," says Gulick, "or if it is to be wicked, it is 
usually settled during this period," Says the Rev. William 
Smith : 

"This age, particularly that from twelve to sixteen, is the 
most critical and difficult to deal with in all childhood. It 
is so because the boy now becomes secretive, he neither can 
nor will utter himself, and the very sensitiveness, the longing 
and overpowering sense of the new life, is often so con- 
cealed by inconsistent and even barbarous behavior that 
one quite loses comprehension and patience. 

"The very apparent self-sufficiency of the boy at this period 
causes the parents to discontinue many means of amusements 
and tokens of affection which were retained until now. The 
twelve-months-old infant is submerged in toys, but the 
twelve-year-old boy has nothing at home to play with. The 
infant is caressed until he is pulplike and breathless, but 
the lad, who is hungry for love and understanding, is held 
at arm's length. This is the time when most parents are 
found wanting."^ 

The Tendency to Crime is very great at this period. 
Truancy is generally the first step, and the gang is the 
second. Many boys look upon fruit orchards and water- 
melon patches as legitimate prey. Often in this period are 
sown seeds of lawlessness which yield a sad harvest in the 



Sunday School Teaching. 



66 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

next. Running with the crowd or the "gang," boys often 
learn to smoke cigarettes, to disobey parents, to break the 
Sabbath, to swear, to make fun of good things, and even 
to drink and steal. The strongest will and the most powerful 
body in the gang is the leader, and his influence if bad is ex- 
ceedingly demoralizing to his young follower. Not many 
who have been properly trained in the earlier period of their 
lives will drift into actual crime, but the tendency is gen- 
erally present. The years from twelve to eighteen are the 
school years of crime, just as the years from eighteen to 
twenty-five are the years when crime produces its fruit. 
The Sunday school teacher who has a class of adolescents 
has indeed a grave responsibility upon him. To lead them 
aright will require all the tact and wisdom and religion that 
he may possess. 

The Sunday School Teacher, The adolescent classes should 
be given the wisest and most sympathetic teachers in the 
school. It is often supposed that the man or the woman 
with commanding personality and with a deep knowledge 
of the Bible belongs, as a matter of course, to the senior 
classes, but it is a wrong idea. The school should save its 
boys and girls if it has to lower the grade of every class in the 
Senior Department. The adolescent classes should have 
nothing short of the best. The teacher should be one who 
understands boys and girls, one who can win their respect, 
one who for the time can be a boy or a girl himself. An 
athletic, tactful, energetic, consecrated man should teach 
the boys, and a strong, thoroughly alive, consecrated, 
womanly woman the girls. The classes should be small, 
and the boys and girls should be taught in separate classes. 
The teacher who will do the best work will not confine him- 
self, as so many do, to the theories of teaching, and when the 
boys do not fit the theories lay it to the boys; he will become 
acquainted with each of his pupils individually; he will 
study their lives, their ideals, their needs; and he will do as 
much work on week days as on Sundays. If a boy is absent, 
he will call on him or write him a letter; if he is sick, he will 
visit him; if he has a birthday, he will remember it. He 
will visit the playgrotmd, will organize walks and picnics, 
will invite the whole class sometimes to his home, and will 



THE EARLY ADOLESCENT PERIOD 67 

devise activities and relief expeditions and charities into 
which all may fall with enthusiasm. Such work requires 
effort and consecrated determination, but it pays. Many 
precious young souls have been lost because Sunday school 
teachers have not had the time to save them. 

The Demand for Activity. The boy of thirteen is a dy- 
namo fairly spluttering with pent-up possibilities. Ten or 
twelve boys together make a veritable power house. They 
are called bad when often they are not really bad at all. 
They want to do something; they want something objective 
to conquer or demolish. They care little for rest for the 
weary, or peace, or resignation, or the hope of heaven, and 
the like; they want not the religious life of old men and 
women, but the life of action. "The instant response that 
young men give to occasions of objective need is superb." 
The church is too much in danger of emphasizing feminine 
rather than masculine characteristics. The boy should be 
given something specific to do. The class, perhaps, should 
be organized as a club, with a constitution and a president. 
If possible, a room in the church should be fitted up com- 
fortably, with the right kind of games, magazines, and pic- 
tures and books. There should be frequent phonographic 
entertainments and magic lantern exhibitions and debates. 
The teachers, one or more of them, should be present, and 
they should make the boys feel at home. They should take 
the boy where they find him, even talk of ball games and 
hockey, and speculate on the chances of the team. There is 
real religion in a squarely played game, and in a sacrifice hit, 
or a burst of temper controlled in order to win the champion- 
ship. The energies of such a club may be directed into many 
channels. Says Cornelius Loder, a practical worker with boys : 

"A full assortment of indoor games, frequent socials, brief 
practical talks by business men, and other interesting events, 
can be arranged; stamp, coin, and curio committees should 
be appointed; scrapbooks on various subjects will keep others 
busy; a camera club for those interested in photography; 
outside games, such as baseball, basket ball, football, tennis, 
bicycle runs, tramping, and athletic features, will satisfy 
others, and especially hold the older fellows. A uniformed 
baseball nine gives prominence to the work. A summer 



68 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

camp can be maintained, and if the club is small the re- 
quired number can be secured by inviting in outside boys. 
Manual training along simple lines is good, and work should 
be undertaken in printing, basket weaving, burnt wood, 
scroll sawing, turning lathe, etc." 

All this is only suggestive. Most schools must be content 
with very simple things, but anything that will keep the 
boys in the Sunday school and give them a wholesome place 
where on week evenings they may spend their spare time 
under right influences is a long step toward the highest 
religious life. 

Sympathy. Here, as at every step in Sunday school work 
with children, sympathy is the keynote. It is the easiest 
thing in the world to lose patience with the conceited boy 
and the frivolous girl. Labor often seems thrown away. 
The boys will fight and bully and play truant and disregard 
all advice, they will know more than all their teachers can 
tell them, and they will treat the best efforts in their behalf 
often with seeming contempt ; but for all that they may not 
really be to blame. They are passing in their development 
"through a stage in the evolution of the race." There are 
certain instincts in their lives that they must obey. "We 
must remember," says Dr. Huestis, "that instinct is a holy 
thing; that it is the voice of the remote past making itself 
heard in the present; that it exists for a purpose — and that 
to give rise to something even nobler than itself. Boys love 
to tease. Often they are cruel, with but little or no sense of 
the wickedness of their acts. Boys fight. They do these 
things not because they are depraved by nature, but because 
in this way they unconsciously cultivate that sense of power 
without which they could not make their way in later life." 
He who would win boys must know boys, must sympathize 
with boys, must be able to look at life from the boy's point 
of view. 

The Religion of Yotith is exceedingly active and practical. 
It contains very little of reminiscence; rare indeed it is when 
a boy can spontaneously arise and give his Christian ex- 
perience. He wants something to do, not an opportunity 
to talk about doing. Appoint him on a committee to carry 
flowers to the sick, or to gather materials for an entertain- 



THE EARLY ADOLESCENT PERIOD 69 

merit, or to take a Sunday school census, or to distribute 
Home Department literature, and he will work with vigor. 
As long as he is doing something he is easy to manage. The 
discipline of the class is very often made easy by enlisting 
the activities of all present. They can be set to drawing 
maps to illustrate the lesson, they can plan blackboard 
exercises for possible use in the primary room, they can be 
given outside work in a book of reference and can report 
upon it to the class, they can gather pictures and illustrative 
materials. If one but studies his class thoughtfully he can 
find ample work to keep them busy. The boy and the girl 
should feel that they are helping in the work, that the work 
would hobble a little if they were absent. The teacher must 
not talk all the time, and he must not monopolize the hour 
in any way. He should simply direct the activities of his 
pupils, for activities constitute the religion of youth. 

The New Testament Period, Dr. Dawson after a study of 
a large number of children gives as his conclusion that "chil- 
dren in the adolescent period show a decided interest in the 
New Testament, especially in the four Gospels and the Acts 
of the Apostles. They also show a very special interest in 
Jesus and the principal disciples. The interest in John the 
disciple is an early adolescent interest, while the interest in 
Jesus culminates somewhat later, and is sustained through- 
out. This suggests that the material of instruction for 
adolescence should be derived largely from the New Testa- 
ment." Before adolescence children almost without excep- 
tion prefer the Old Testament. Now that the view of the 
larger life has come to them they are eager to know more of 
it. They long to "get adjusted to the largest and best ideals. 
The quickening of the sense of life, as lived through others 
and for others, awakens the impulse to become a part of the 
great cosmic struggle for more complete existence." The 
youth needs above all things a philosophy of life, a guide, a 
moral code, and he finds it all in the teachings of Jesus. 
The ideals of Christianity — its purity, its sacrifice, its holi- 
ness, its loyalty to a great, ideal, manly man, purer than Sir 
Galahad, nobler than Arthur, tenderer than their mother — • 
all this appeals powerfully to adolescence. Every lesson 
should center now about the life of Jesus and the story of his 



70 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

disciples. There is to be no preaching, only a bringing out 
most vividly of the love, the heroism, the courage, the in- 
tense activity, the manliness, the sacrifice, the message of 
the Christ, and the loyalty and love of his disciples. The 
lives of the great heroes of the race may be dwelt upon at 
times — men like Gordon, Livingstone, Dr. Grenfell, Saint 
Francis, King Alfred, William of Orange — but the center of 
all must be the Man of the Gospels. 

Conversion, It is the natural period for conversion, but 
there should be no unnatural forcing. If the seed has been 
well sown in the earlier periods the deep religious conviction 
will come, if not now, then at a storm and stress period later. 
Every normal boy and girl comes inevitably to the moment 
when the matter of taking an outspoken stand for the Chris- 
tian life presents itself with tremendous force. Nature has 
ordered it. There comes the feeling that the crisis of life 
has arrived, and that the decision is for all eternity. If 
parents and pastor and Sunday school teacher have all done 
their duty there is little doubt as to what the result will be. 
"Conversion," says Coe, "or some equivalent personalizing 
of religion, is a normal part of adolescent growth." 

The Personal Touch. The surest results are those which 
come from personal contact, heart to heart. The teacher 
must use tact. "Abruptly to ask a boy to speak in meeting, 
or to quiz him before the class about his religious life, is 
sometimes either to alienate him altogether or to inoculate 
him against deeper religious impressions later in life." But 
there will come the time when the word can be spoken, and 
the teacher must be ready to speak it. Dr. Starbuck has 
admirably summed up the matter: "One can scarcely think 
of a single pedagogical rule in regard to religious training 
after the end of childhood which might not violate the 
deepest needs of the person whom it is the purpose to help. 
The first demand is that the teacher or spiritual leader shall 
know something of the case he is to deal with — his training, 
his temperament, and the present trend of his life. It re- 
quires careful reading into human nature to know what a 
person needs and is ripe for — the magic stroke which is to 
change a child into a man." 

A Comparative View. The Rev. William Smith* following 



THE EARLY ADOLESCENT PERIOD 



71 



Roads, has compiled a very helpful comparative view of the 
first three periods: 



Primal y Age 
1-6 Years 
Restlessness 
Activity- 
Frankness 
Faith and Trust 
Dependent 
Concrete 
Imagination Age 
Imitates Parents 
Sex- Unconscious 
No Time Thought 
Timidity 



Childhood 
7-12 Years 
Less Restlessness 
Still Active 
Shyness 
Independence 
Group Age 
Hero Age 
Memory Age 
Imitates Companions 
Sex-Repellent 
Lives in To- day 
Courage 



Youth of Adolescence 
13-18 Years 
Storm and Stress 
Less Active 
Diplomatic 
Confidence 

"Gang" or "Set" Age 
Abstract Age 
Philosophic Age 
Imitates Noble Deeds 
Sex-Attracted 
Ideals 

Recklessness 
Doubts 
On "Fool's Hill" 



CHAPTER XI 
LATER ADOLESCENCE 

The Vital Years between seventeen or eighteen and twenty- 
five are the time of adjustment and self- discovery. The youth 
finds himself. It is the college age, the age of apprenticeship, 
of preparation for life, of far hopes and ambitions. The 
youth more and more is learning to concentrate his energies 
upon one thing. He talks much now of specialties. Paul's 
text, "This one thing I do," appeals to him. He throws him- 
self with tremendous energy into whatever he does. The 
college athlete works at his training for months and even 
years with an intensity that one may look for in' vain else- 
where. Men like Galileo, Weber, Beethoven, Wilberforce, 
Michael Angelo did much of their best work before they 
were twenty. It is the age of tremendous activity, both 
physical and mental. If the activity be turned to good ends, 
it enriches the world; many of the most significant additions 
ever made to art, science, literature, philosophy, religion 
have come from young lives scarcely out of their teens. If 
this activity be malign, the evil is not to be measured; the 
greater part of the crimes of the world are committed by 
those between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. Indeed, 
the period has been denominated the age of crime, or, in softer 
words, "the wild oats period." In reality it is not the sowing 
period at all; in most cases it will be found that the wild oats 
were sown during early adolescence. In this later period 
they spring up into deeds which are harvested in shame 
and disgrace. The boy of thirteen who runs with a "gang," 
who neglects Sunday school, who learns to smoke cigarettes, 
to run the streets nights, to pilfer from orchards, and play 
truant from school, is sowing the seed which he may harvest 
in crime before he is twenty-one. 

Dotibt. The doubtings and questionings which began in 
early adolescence culminate during this later period. Says 
Haslett: "Doubt begins to reveal itself in females at about 

72 



LATER ADOLESCENCE 1Z 

the age of eleven or twelve, is at its height at fifteen and six- 
teen, disappearing almost entirely at about twenty-one. 
Doubt appears in males at twelve or thirteen, is highest at 
seventeen to nineteen or twenty, strong again at twenty- 
three, and remains in varying force throughout adolescence." 
The doubt in most cases centers about religious questions, 
and it is often the most pronounced in those who have had 
the most rigorous early training. The narrower the religious 
ideals of the home, the greater the storm and stress of the 
reconstruction period. But religious doubting is not a thing 
really to be deplored. He who confesses that he has never 
had doubts confesses that he has never thought at all for 
himself. For the young mind to doubt is usually a per- 
fectly normal phenomenon. The keen young intellect must 
try everything for itself. Its doubting is in reality a process 
of evolution rather than revolution. If the foundations have 
been carefully laid, and if the doubtings are met with sym- 
pathy and argued as man to man, the period will leave the 
youth stronger and better. If, however, nothing but nar- 
row dogma and creed and system has been given the youth 
in his earlier years, he may be obliged to throw it all over- 
board and begin anew, perhaps after dangerous models. 

Storm and Stress. But doubt is only one of many emo- 
tional exxJeriences in the "upheaval of youth." Starbuck 
fotmd that of those whom he questioned three fourths of 
the women and half of the men had passed through a period 
of storm and stress. "The average ages for the beginning 
and ending of the storm and stress experience were found 
to be 13.6 and 16.7 for women, and 16.5 and 22 for men." 
Burnham cites the journal of Marie Bashkirtseff to illustrate 
this phenomenon so common in young life: "All the char- 
acteristics of her sex at the period of adolescence are de- 
scribed. Self-conscious, vain, imaginative, self-deprecatory, 
dreaming by day and by night, demanding unbounded love, 
hating moderation in everything, sometimes pathetically 
religious, making God her confidant in the ideal love affair 
with the Duke whom she had never met, tortured by jeal- 
ousy, love, envy, deceit, wounded vanity, by every hideous 
feeling in the world, when the Duke marries, working with 
mad intensity for her ideals — it is no wonder that so intense 



74 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

a flame soon burned out, and that she died at the close of the 
period of adolescence." This is an extreme, but many ado- 
lescents feel some phase of this storm. Fiction is full of this 
phenomenon: Maggie Tulliver, David Grieve, Robert Els- 
mere, Waldo in "The Story of an African Farm," are good 
examples. "The experience," says Dr. Murray, "takes 
various forms: a sense of sin, sense of imperfection, fear of 
death, brooding depression, morbid introspection, distress 
over doubts, efforts to control passion, and friction against 
surroundings." Dr. Starbuck has explained the causes: 
"The storm and stress is due to the functioning of new 
powers, which have no specific outlet, and are driven to 
force for themselves an expression in one way or another. 
If there is no channel open for the free expression of this 
new energy, it wastes itself against unyielding and unde- 
veloped faculties, and is recognized by its pain accompani- 
ment, distress, unrest, anxiety, heat of passion, groping after 
something, brooding self-condemnation; but if there be no 
resistance, there results a burst of new life, fresh conscious- 
ness, appreciation of truth, a personal hold on virtue, joy, 
and sense of well-being." 

Conversion. The period of storm and stress has been 
called the natural period for conversion. The experience 
comes to the average life at about fifteen. Coe found that 
in 1,784 cases of conversion of which he had the records the 
average was 16.4 years, and that women on the average are 
converted two or three years younger than men. From the 
statistics available there seem to be two periods of conver- 
sion: one about twelve and one about twenty. The curve 
at twelve in almost every instance is higher than the curve 
at twenty. Says Dr. Coe: "Let us interpret the facts as 
follows: The mental condition during adolescence is par- 
ticularly favorable to deep religious impressions. This is the 
time when the child becomes competent to make a deeply 
personal life choice ; such a choice is easier than either before 
or after; this is, accordingly, the time at which a wise church 
will expect to reap its chief harvest of members." 

It must not be gathered, however, that all youth pass 
through this storm period, or that there is no other way of 
entering the church save through this tumultuous experi- 



LATER ADOLESCENCE 75 

ence of adolescent conversion. Three facts should be rec- 
ognized : I . A large minority of human beings never pass 
through any experience of storm and stress; perhaps a 
quarter of all women and fully half of all men. 2. Very 
many people have no tumultuous experience in their con- 
version, and there are some who never lose a conscious com- 
munion with God, whose Christian experience may be said 
to be unbroken from their earliest lisping of prayers in in- 
fancy. 3 . There are many, and there might with wise manage- 
ment be many more, converted years before the period called 
that of storm and stress begins. Says Dr. E. S. Lewis very 
wisely: "A pious mother may hold her child to God from his 
birth. Dr. Rishell reminds us that 'many of the noblest 
specimens of 'Christian manhood and womanhood are found 
among those who were trained in the habits and dispositions 
of religion from infancy.' . . . Some years ago The Golden 
Rule sent out a circular letter to a large number of repre- 
sentative ministers. In answer, two thirds of them declared 
that they could not definitely fix a day when they came 
from darkness into light." 

In the Sanday School* It has been very difficult to keep 
the young men and women of this period in the Sunday 
school. They have felt too often that the school had very 
little to offer them. To come without much preparation, 
to be given a lesson leaf, to listen for half an hour to a teacher 
who is droning interminable platitudes to his class, has not 
attracted them. They are in the intellectual age; they de- 
mand that things shall be new and up to date; they want to 
explore new territory and depart from the conventional, 
humdrum ways. Precisely the same problem is before the 
Sunday school as before the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion in the colleges. The Christian Association has partly 
solved it by organizing classes under trained leaders to* 
pursue special topics: "The Life of Paul," "The Apostolic Age 
of the Church," "The Life of Jesus," "The Minor Prophets 
and Their Times," "The Social Teaching of Jesus," "Old 
Testament Biography," and such like. It is a hint for the 
Sunday school. The young men and the young women 
must be given special work, something that they can enter 
upon with enthusiasm. If a teacher were to go to a dozen 



^e ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

young men one at a time and say, "We are going to com- 
mence a study of the life of Paul, using Stalker's book as a 
basis. We are going into it thoroughly and systematically. 
I think you can help us. We mean business. We shall have 
somebody in once in a while to give us special talks, and we 
are going to make it profitable in many ways. I know where 
we can get a dozen good books on the subject and a good 
map. Come and help us " — if a teacher were to go at it in 
this way, he would quickly have a class and keep it. The 
good teacher is elastic in his plans. 

Teacher-Training Class* It is from this period of life that 
the young men and women of the teacher-training class 
are to come. It is the golden period to train one's self for 
usefulness to others. Under a . careful teacher's direction 
the course of studies can be made not only interesting but 
vitally helpful in very many different ways. There is op- 
portunity offered here for enlargement both mental and 
spiritual. 



CHAPTER XII 
THE GRADED CURRICULUM 

The Basis of Grading. The most practical contribution 
which the science of child study has made to practical edu- 
cational work has been the graded curriculum. It is now 
realized that grading is based not alone on the fact that the 
mind of the child becomes gradually stronger and more 
mature, but upon the fact that it develops irregularly, that 
there are periods of special aptitudes and of culmination and 
crisis. Children, we have seen, are not little men and little 
women to be given the same tasks as their elders, only in 
simpler form; they have adaptations and instincts and pe- 
culiarities which are so distinct and so removed from adult 
traits that sometimes it seems as if they belonged to another 
species. It is the aim of modern pedagogy to take advan- 
tage of this fact and to give to the pupil at each stage of his 
development the studies peculiarly fitted to that stage. 
There is one period, for instance, when play must be a 
dominating element in all studies, another when memory is 
at its strongest, another when biography is best taught, and 
still another when chivalric ideals and the great altruistic 
principles of Christianity appeal with almost irresistible force. 
Secular education has recognized this fact and has arranged 
with care the sequence and the grouping of studies in its 
curriculum. 

Uniform JLessons. The uniform Sunday school lesson 
series has beyond question accomplished a marvelous work. 
It is; not to be lightly abandoned; but that it cannot furnish 
the whole curriculum of the Sunday school is evident to 
anyone who has made a study of the science of education. 
To keep an adolescent class for months in Genesis and 
Exodus or the Chronicles, w^hen at the very crisis of their 
spiritual lives they should be studying intensively the life 
of Jesus, is a sad mistake. It is equally sad to see little chil- 
dren struggling with the minor prophets. It is being recog- 

77 



78 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

nized everywhere that the Uniform lesson must be abandoned 
by the younger classes and must be largely supplemented if 
used in the higher grades. The ideal curriculum is graded 
in its material to the various stages of development repre- 
sented by the pupils. Supplemental lessons would be un- 
necessary with such a curriculum. 

The Need of Grading. For the Sunday school is a school, 
to be graded according to scientific principles like other 
schools. The pupil at each stage of his career is to be given 
that for which he is adapted. The great text-book of the 
school is, of course, the Bible, but it must not be forgotten 
that the Bible is a library in itself. It could furnish a univer- 
sity with subjects for study. If, as seems inevitable, the 
Sunday school is to furnish the religious education of the 
coming generation, it must be made scientific in its methods. 
It must be made broad in its foundations. "It is something 
more than a Bible school. It is a school of Christian knowl- 
edge, and must gather into its course of study more than the 
content of the Bible. So far as may be, this course must 
give to childhood and youth the largest possible knowledge 
of the principles of religion." To reach this ideal will de- 
mand great changes ; but the Graded Lessons prepared under 
the direction of the International Sunday School Association, 
the courses for the Elementary grades being ready for intro- 
duction at time of this writing, give promise of a better era. 

The Acqttisitional Period. We have seen that until about 
the age of twelve or thirteen the acquisitional powers of the 
child predominate. There is little reflection and little ability 
for expression in action of the fruits of reflection. The child 
is adjusting himself; he is getting acquainted with his sur- 
roundings. The material present is all-absorbing. To reach 
him now one must appeal to him through the concrete. We 
have found three well-defined stages in this period, giving 
rise in Sunday school parlance to three departments: (i) the 
Beginners' Department, including the ages of three, four, 
and five; (2) the Primary Department, six, seven, and 
eight; (3) the Junior Department, nine, ten, eleven, and 
twelve. Let us prescribe a curriculum for these various 
grades, looking only to the aptitudes of the pupils as we 
have determined them in our study of child life. 



THE GRADED CURRICULUM 79 

The Beginners' Department* The kindergarten age cor- 
responds to the age of myth and story in the development 
of the race. The course at this stage must appeal to sense- 
perception, with its objects from nature and art, pictures, 
models, etc., to imitation and suggestion, to imagination 
with its simple stories from the Bible and from secular 
literature, to the memory, and to motor activity with its 
action exercises, its transitions, its marching to music. The 
stories told the child should be vital and true to the funda- 
mentals of right and truth, and they should be simple and 
unstilted. Every story should center about a person and 
should bring that person out with realistic intensity. 

The Primary Department. Here the instruction is still 
largely by means of the story, but this instruction may now 
be supplemented in many ways. The stories now may be 
grouped , about moral truths. For a month or more there 
may be stories illustrating truth; then may come obedience, 
love, the goodness of God, and the like. Pictures now are 
of great importance. Nature study may be taught with 
great profit to illustrate God's love and care. To the Old 
Testament stories may be added now simple incidents from 
the life of Christ, like the Bethlehem story and the blessing 
of little children. There is to be no attempt at chronology. 
The stories must still be kept "out of place, out of time." 
Masterpieces of secular fiction for childhood may be read 
now to the children, and condensed biographies may be given. 
The motor activities of the child may still be controlled by 
variations of position, marching to music, and by the use 
of simple manual work related to the lesson of the day. 
Memory is now active, and simple sections, wholly within 
the comprehension of the child, like the twenty-third psalm, 
may be memorized, and also little verses and simple hymns. 

The Jtinior Department. The course of study in the 
Junior Department is much different from anything the 
child has previously taken. This is the dreaded pre-adolescent 
period, when the motor activities are so vitally predominant. 
The pupil must do something. The story now must have 
action intense and dramatic if it is to hold the attention. 
The boy delights to read of hunting and trapping and ad- 
venture, and his games reflect his reading. The gang spirit 



8o ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

begins to rule. The teacher who tries to preach to such 
a class, to moralize or to teach abstract religious truth, will 
get small hearing. The material now must be hero biography 
both from the Bible and from general Hterature. Illustra- 
tions should be drawn from the world of science and action. 
The pupils' reading should be wisely directed. It would be 
well to spend several minutes of each period discussing 
books and reading. Geography should be commenced in 
earnest, about a year after the studies of the day school have 
made the pupils familiar with the general outlines of the 
continents; and this will generally be about the middle of 
the junior period. Maps should be drawn in the class, and 
models of the geography of the Holy Land should be made. 
The element of chronology may now to a limited extent be 
introduced. The stories of the history of Israel may be taken 
up in chronological order and outlines of the lives of Old 
Testament characters, like Joseph or Moses or David, may 
be made. The order should be, first, geography, then history 
that makes use of the geography. The teacher should re- 
member also that this is the golden age of the memory. The 
pupil may now learn the books of the Bible, the Ten Com- 
mandments, a few of the psalms, and such other portions 
of Scripture as will be most helpful to him for the truth they 
embody. Above all, the teaching should keep the pupil 
active. He should have a notebook, or colors, or a model 
to work with at frequent intervals, or he should be set to 
looking up stories in the Bible, or be put to some other exer- 
cise that will keep his hands as active as his brain. The 
studies of this period, therefore, are elementary history and 
biography, memory work, reading, nature study, and manual 
work. 

Biography. The framer of the Sunday school curriculum 
will have it impressed upon him constantly that biography 
during the acquisitional and assimilative periods is of su- 
preme importance. Large portions of the Bible are history, 
but it is history told by means of the biographies of repre- 
sentative lives. It is as if one were to write the history of the 
United States by simply telling the story of the lives of 
Washington and the succeeding presidents, with short 
sketches of men like Channing, Beecher, Emerson, Long- 



THE GRADED CURRICULUM 8i 

fellow, Fremont, Astor, and Edison. This is the most primi- 
tive type of history and the one most easily understood. 
First of all, it is concrete. Even the smallest child can under- 
stand the life of Joseph. It is the simple story of one life 
told in images that for the most part are familiar to the 
experience of the youngest, yet it may be studied by savants 
as a document upon the civilization and the annals of ancient 
Egypt. There should be biography from the beginning of 
the course to the beginning of the expressional period at 
sixteen when formal history is best given. First it should be 
the simple myth stories, then the lives of the great hero 
leaders : the patriarchs, Moses, Joshua, Samson and the other 
judges, with Samuel, Elijah, and the prophets. Then should 
come more systematic biography, biography with geography 
and history in the background : the lives of Paul, of Peter, of 
David, of Daniel, of the patriarchs; indeed, of all in the fore- 
going list, told now with the added element of historical 
chronology and geographical background. The life of Jesus 
studied from various standpoints should be reserved for the 
great religious crisis period of adolescence. The typical lives 
of the Bible are not exhausted with one study of them. They 
may be approached again and again, each time with a 
broadened outlook and from a new standpoint. Children 
should be led to feel the story. For them it should be made 
dramatic, vivid, real. Adults will demand the" philosophy 
of events. They will want historical perspective, cause and 
effect, sources and results. A graded curriculum might be 
made, using biography alone. 

The Intermediate Department* The early adolescent 
period needs the most careful supervision as to its curric- 
ulum. According to psychology, at twelve or thirteen the 
child enters upon the assimilational period of his education. 
Up to this point he has been gaining percepts; now he begins 
to see the relation of percepts and to combine them of his 
own volition into concepts. He reflects now upon the rela- 
tion of things. He begins the process of self -building, and 
so begins the formation of character. To use a common 
illustration, the child up to twelve is like one who is eating 
a hearty dinner of many things; after twelve he begins to 
digest and assimilate the food which he has taken. Into the 



82 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

Intermediate Department, therefore, should be introduced 
thought studies. It is the high-school period, with its litera- 
ture and history and science and college preparatory work 
generally. The pupil is ready for a systematic study of 
biblical epochs, but the religious crisis which is now upon 
him makes it imperative that the great altruistic heroes of 
the race be presented with force. Now is the time for a 
careful biography of Christ. The pupil might write his own 
life of the Master, directed week by week by his teacher. 
He might illustrate it with maps and drawings, and with pic- 
tures from periodicals. Then a study of the life of Paul may 
be attempted, and a life also of David. The outlines of 
church history and of denominational government, and par- 
ticularly the fundamental Christian and denominational 
doctrines, should be clearly taught. Poetry now, and, in- 
deed, culture material of all varieties, is appreciated as never 
before. The truth should be so presented that the moral 
will enforce itself — but the spiritual truth should be ever 
present. The teacher should recognize fidly the pupil's 
tendency to doubt, and should help him in every possible 
way, though not obtrusively. The organization of clubs, 
study circles, and guilds is often helpful. The studies of 
this period, therefore, should be: geography and map- 
drawing; history taken up now systematically; biography, 
especially of Christ; literature, especially that centering 
about the great chivalric heroes; church history, doctrines, 
and government; consecutive notebook work with illustra- 
tions; carefully directed reading, and as far as possible the 
making of models and illustrative apparatus. 

Expression. With later adolescence comes the last opera- 
tion of the mind, reprodtiction, or, as it is better termed, 
perhaps, expression. This has been defined as "the operation 
which involves the creation of thought, and the expression 
of thought and feeling in language and action." After the 
taking and assimilating of food there should come physical 
vigor and the capacity for muscular work. After the assimi- 
lation of mental food — a problem or a course of action care- 
fully thought out — there should come an intellectual creation. 
In the same way the results of moral training should be 
action — character which will yield what the Bible designates 



THE GRADED CURRICULUM 83 

as "fruits." "Psychology plainly shows," declares Roark, 
"that in the moral education of the young the here, and not 
the hereafter, deeds, and not creeds, should receive the em- 
phasis." If they are given the emphasis, and long enough, 
the results will be deeds — habits of reverence, honesty, 
unselfishness, godliness in the life of the pupil; and such a 
result should be the ultimate aim of Sunday school work. 

The Senior Class. Expressional power comes at about the 
sixteenth or seventeenth year, the age in America when young 
men start for college. The mental powers are now mature 
and very active. "There are now enlarged conceptions and 
deeper realizations of religion, more serious views of life and 
duty, developed and settled condition of character, and a 
growing desire for leadership." The course now should 
consist of exhaustive studies of subjects: single books of the 
Bible studied with thoroughness, the book of Acts, for ex- 
ample; periods of biblical history; studies of ancient geog- 
raphy, like a careful exploration of old Jerusalem; studies 
of the literary forms of the Bible and kindred subjects. 
Such a class does not relish fragments, a lesson here, then a 
jump of several chapters; it wants the whole of a subject 
studied thoroughly. It is with this class that teacher-training 
work can best be carried on. The later adolescent is full of 
zeal and courage. He delights in breaking into new fields. 
The child study and psychology and educational science will 
appeal to him. The life of Jesus may now be studied from 
the ethical and religious standpoints. The epistles of Paul 
can now be appreciated. Studies should draw the class 
strongly toward the Christian life. Its doubts and storm 
and stress should be cared for, and everything should be so 
ordered that when the crisis is past the pupil shall find him- 
self at peace with himself and man and God. 

The Ad«It Qasses. The adult work corresponds to uni- 
versity and professional school courses. There is no end to 
the subjects that may be pursued. The Bible may be studied 
book by book by the seminar method. Each student may 
be given one phase of the work to write out, then the work 
of all may be combined into one exhaustive commentary 
of the class's own making. There may be studies of doctrine, 
of the history of monotheism, of the development of the 



84 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

canon, and so on indefinitely. The history of the church 
and of missions and of the Sunday school may be taken up. 
No one ever graduates from the Sunday school. The course 
is endless, for it is drawn from the great reservoir of religious 
truth. 

Promotions, With a graded school and a graded curric- 
ulum there must be a constant advancement of classes. 
Each year the pupil is promoted into new studies. Shall the 
teacher go with the class or, as in the secular schools, remain 
teaching the same grade year after year while class after 
class comes and goes? In many schools this is a hard ques- 
tion. The movement of classes from teacher to teacher does 
away with the beautiful old custom of the teacher's growing 
old with her class, living year after year with the same pupils 
until they grow to be like members of her own family. How- 
ever, despite this bit of sentiment, it is far better from the 
standpoint of educational science for the class to advance 
and the teacher remain. He who, for instance, has made a 
study of adolescent boys until he understands them and can 
lead and mold them had better remain his whole life long in 
charge of this work. Then, too, it is better for the pupil to 
change teachers periodically. He gets a variety of teachers 
and the fact stimulates his interest. He gets in the strong 
school the teacher always best fitted for him. It is one of 
the great causes of leaks in the Sunday schools of the old 
type that a class grows away from its teacher, or that a 
group of boys or girls is condemned to sit year after year 
with no hope of change under the preaching of a droning 
moralizer who knows little of the science of teaching. 

Knowing and Doing. And now the final word: there is 
always a danger that Sunday school teaching will become 
merely academic, that it will feed the intellect and nothing 
else. There is danger, on the other hand, of too much goody- 
goody moralizing, of too much pious preaching, too much 
pressing home of the central truth, too much searching and 
probing of the soil to see if the seed has begun to germinate. 
Against both of these extremes the teacher must guard him- 
self. He must keep before him, however, the great truth 
that every life sooner or later will express itself, that if food 
of any kind is taken and assimilated it will result in capacity 



THE GRADED CURRICULUM 85 

for action, and he should see to it that he is supplying the 
proper food. The one great aim of all religious teaching is 
character, and if character is not forming in the right direc- 
tion, something is wrong with curriculum or teacher. This 
is a high ideal, but no other is safe. 



PART II 
SOME ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



87 



CHAPTER XIII 
PRELIMINARY VIEW 

Definitions. Psychology — from the Greek words psyche, 
"soul" or "mind," and logos, "words about" or "the science 
of" — has been defined as "a scientific study of the mind," 
or "the science of mental processes." There is, perhaps, 
little need in a study like this to define carefully the term 
"mental processes." The word "mental" may be taken to 
cover all of the phenomena of consciousness; it embraces 
all that comes into our sensible experience. A "process" is 
something that is going forward. Other sciences may deal 
with things; psychology deals with processes — with the 
moving stream of consciousness. "It is a continuous opera- 
tion, a progressive change, which the scientific observer can 
trace throughout its course. It melts into and blends with 
operations which follow and precede it." It is not a thing. 
To investigate the mind as a thing would be to dissect the 
dead brain and nerve systems, and this is anatomy. Psy- 
chology deals, rather, with the now — now — now — now of 
conscious life. 

We have already made large drafts upon the science of 
psychology in. our lessons devoted to child study. Where 
we dealt with temperament, with the primal instincts like 
play and imitation and collecting, with imagination and 
memory and religious feeling, we were within this domain. 
It is impossible to draw any hard-and-fast lines of separa- 
tion. The great changes of adolescence are as much psy- 
chological as they are physiological. It remains to pick up 
these scattered threads and to study more carefully the 
processes of the human mind that we may know more fully 
how to take advantage of its laws. 

Psychology for the Sunday School. We can make no at- 
tempt at a systematic study of psychology. Whole sections 
of the subject must of necessity be omitted, and many im- 
portant phases must be passed over with a mere paragraph. 



90 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

The aim will be to select only those things that will be of 
value to the practical teacher, and to apply them to actual 
needs in as sensible a manner as possible. The subject will 
therefore be as much pedagogy as it is psychology; the first 
step in each case will be to elucidate the psychological prin- 
ciple or law and then to give hints as to how it may be ap- 
plied to Sunday school conditions. In other words, some 
materials are to be selected from the science of psychology 
for the building up of an art of Sunday school pedagogy. Or, 
better still, the principles of the science are to be discussed 
in such a way as to suggest to the teacher methods and 
material for his work. That such a thing is demanded need 
not be debated. The Sunday school deals, first of all, with 
the human mind. He who would teach must make use of 
mental processes. Even the spiritual life of the pupil can be 
approached only through this channel. The teacher must 
know the best methods of approach; he must be able to 
select the proper material and adapt it to his class; he must 
know where to start, how to gain attention and hold it, how 
to train the memory and the imagination and the will ; he must 
be able, moreover, to judge accurately the condition of his 
class and its point of view. Materials and methods that will 
succeed with one group of learners will fail utterly with 
another. The teacher, then, should study psychology to 
supplement his knowledge of human nature. 

Not a Dry Study. Psychology is the most vital and vivid 
of all the sciences. It deals with human life and the habits 
and the workings of the human soul. The veriest ignoramus 
makes use of it every day of his life. We all know and use 
great volumes of material about mental processes. We have 
devices to aid the memory, we know how to gain the atten- 
tion of others, we realize much about the nature of habits, 
of the will, and the imagination. The study of habit, of 
automatism, of memory, of observation, of the emotions, 
of religious psychology is in reality most fascinating if one 
goes about it aright. It opens up whole fields of interesting 
material. 

Nothing is more absorbing than the study of human life. 
We read novels with breathless interest; but the novel, if 
it is worthy of our time, must be psychologically true. It is 



PRELIMINARY VIEW 91 

a study "by a master of the workings of some human soul. 
What will be the mental processes of Hester Prynne with 
the scarlet letter on her breast and of Arthur Dimmesdale 
when he sees it there? It is the business of the novelist to 
tell us. Maggie TuUiver, in The Mill on the Floss, is one of the 
best studies of adolescence that we can find. Why did 
Gwendolin feel her whole life change when she looked up 
from the gaming table into the eyes of Daniel Deronda? 
Why in the Marble Faun did Hilda, burdened with the 
secret of murder, feel an irresistible impulse to pour out her 
story when she caught sight of the confessional box? Why 
did Clifford, in The House of the Seven Gables, when he was 
fleeing from the dead man in the old house, talk so volubly 
to the stranger on the car ? These are problems in psychology, 
and they suggest only feebly the fascinating interest of the 
subject. The science deals with the very heart and soul 
of human life. 

The Physiological Basis. Like everything else, the science 
has its roots deep in the physical. It begins with the body. 
The dependence of the mind upon the nervous system is as 
complete as is the dependence of the central telegraph office 
upon the wires and the outlying stations. Without them 
there would be almost total isolation and total ineffective- 
ness. The nervous system and the five senses are, therefore, 
the natural starting point for a systematic study of psy- 
chology. For our purpose, however, it will be useless to 
discuss to any extent this physiological basis. The Sunday 
school teacher need not study the nervous system, or the 
eye and the ear, or the reactions of touch and smell and taste ; 
he needs to consider only a few of the more common mental 
processes; he need choose only those facts which lie at the 
basis of pedagogical method. 

Sensation. One phase of sensation, however, is important 
to the practical teacher. Since the materials for mental 
processes must come altogether from sensation; since, in- 
deed, we know the outside world only as it is interpreted by 
bodily organs, it is obvious that our mental action may be 
influenced by the imperfections or the temporary disarrange- 
ment of these organs. It will be well, then, for us to consider 
briefly such possible defects. The teacher may find a pupil 



92 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

whose defective hearing makes him appear stupid; he may 
find another whose awkwardness is caused by the state of 
his eyes. Dyspepsia, as all know, may change the whole 
color of one's thinking. "The loss of a single sense deprives 
a human life of a whole kingdom of facts." As the first 
step in the mental process is the entrance of the sensation 
into consciousness, it is therefore well to examine the nature 
of the sensation; or, in other words, to find if the sense is 
giving a true report. In pedagogical terms, the teacher 
should study the sense life of his pupils, and if there are 
defects, they should influence his teaching. 

Consciousness. The fact that during all of our waking 
hours and, indeed, during many of our sleeping hours, 
something which we call consciousness is alive within us, is 
one of the miracles of human life. We know not what it is; 
we cannot define it. "How it is," says Huxley, "that any- 
thing so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about 
by the result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unac- 
countable as the appearance of the jinnee when Aladdin 
rubbed his lamp." And Professor James declares that "it 
must be frankly confessed that in no fundamental sense do 
we know where our successive fields of consciousness come 
from, or why they have the precise inner constitution which 
they do have. They certainly follow or accompany our 
brain states; but if we ask how the brain conditions them, 
we have not the remotest inkling of an answer to give." 
We can only start with the general assertion that there is 
a field of consciousness and that it is affected by sensations 
which come through the nervous system. This conscious- 
ness is a continuous stream. Now it is memory, now anger, 
now pain, now will. Sometimes it subsides to a mere trickle; 
sometimes it is a roaring torrent. It may contain but a single 
element or it may have a blend of many. While we must 
take this stream for granted without explanation or satis- 
factory definition, we may study the laws that govern it. 
Dr. Judd defines psychology as "the science of consciousness." 



CHAPTER XIV 

ATTENTION 

Attention. In the foregoing lesson we found that psy- 
chology may be defined as the science of mental processes, 
and that mental processes is but another name for the various 
phenomena of consciousness. We found also that con- 
sciousness, which is thus at the very foundation of the 
science, is undefinable and unexplainable, and that we must 
simply take it for granted. We found also that nothing can 
come into this field of consciousness except sensations borne 
in by some part of the nervous system. But not all sensa- 
tions can come into the field of consciousness. There are 
millions of them that strike every day upon our senses and 
affect us not at all. Consciousness is like an exceedingly 
busy man who can admit into his inner office only a very 
few from the throng of seekers without. It cannot attend 
to every sensation that comes along. There must be atten- 
tion, and attention, in the words of Professor Halleck, is "the 
focusing of consciousness." I am sitting by the open win- 
dow on a perfect June morning reading an absorbingly in- 
teresting book. At length I finish it and look out. Now I 
note the twitter of birds, the distant crowing of cocks, the 
rumble of wheels, the babble of playing children. The 
multitudinous odors of the June morning salute me; the 
soft air fans my cheek; the hard chair is uncomfortable, and 
I arise. All of this I now perceive for the first time, but it 
was all present every moment while I was absorbed in my 
book. The reason it comes to me now is that I remove the 
focus of consciousness from the reading and transfer it to 
my surroundings. This centering of consciousness upon a 
single thing may be carried to extremes: men have become 
so absorbed in their work as to forget their meals and for a 
time even their personalities. Attention, then, is the cen- 
tralization of consciousness upon one thing or one group 
of things. 

9Z 



94 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

Voluntary and Involuntary. Attention is of two kinds: 
the involuntary, or spontaneous, and the voluntary, or 
forced. The first is the natural kind possessed in varying 
degrees by all the higher animals. One saunters along the 
rural highway in perfect mental relaxation. A dog barks, a 
partridge booms up from the brakes, a brooklet gurgles along 
under the bridge, a load of hay crawls up from the meadow, 
the rays of the sun beat down fiercely, a gun is discharged 
near. All of this in due order comes spontaneously into 
consciousness and is focused. But the man is a botanist and 
all at once his eyes light upon a new plant. Instantly there 
springs up a new kind of attention — the voluntary kind. 
The mind does not simply take note of the fact and then 
bound away to other things. The man seats himself and 
begins to study the flower intently; he draws forth a hand- 
book and hunts through its pages; he applies the microscope; 
he makes notes and measurements and drawings; for an 
hour he may pore over the little object to the exclusion of 
everything else; indeed, he may arouse himself to find a 
thunder shower falling upon him. 

The Attention of Children is of the involuntary kind. 
The younger the child, the more difficult it is for him to 
focus attention. Every butterfly sailing across his field of 
vision attracts him; every loud noise; every new appeal to 
any of his senses puts all earlier sensations out of the field of 
consciousness. He drifts from moment to moment at the 
mercy of the haphazard stream of sensations which touch 
his life. Many never outgrow this inability to concentrate. 
I know a college student who cannot look up a word in the 
dictionary in less than five minutes. Every picture detains 
him. All of us must plead guilty to some extent. It is easy 
to drift. It is only the philosopher who can refrain from 
leaving his work and going to the window when the band 
begins suddenly to play. 

Let but a dancing bear arrive, 
A pig that counts you four or five, 
And Cato with his moral strain 
May strive to mend the world in vain. 

Voluntary Attention has its roots in some previous ex- 
perience. The botanist's absorption in the flower was caused 



ATTENTION 95 

by his previous studies. A geologist becomes greatly excited 
by finding a piece of coal in the unexplored forest; by the 
child or the savage it would be given but a passing glance. 
Voluntary attention is at the very basis of education. The 
child who has had little of experience can find no reason for 
holding attention concentrated on one thing for a length of 
time. The more organized interests there are, the more the 
voluntary attention. Two persons may go over the same 
path and come back with widely differing reports of what 
they saw. The botanist sees plants, the lumberman trees, 
the geologist stones, the hunter animals, the artist colors 
and landscape. To a Newton a falling apple is an intensely 
interesting phenomenon, for he brings a full-stored mind 
to the observation; to a child it is an incident not worth 
paying attention to, for he has no materials with which to 
work. An ordinary person will be unable to study a burn- 
ing candle for more than one minute. To be compelled to 
contemplate it long would bring nothing but annoyance and 
fatigue. Faraday, however, undertook the study with 
fascinated interest, and wrote a book about it. It is the 
province of education to make long-continued attention 
possible. The uneducated mind is a wandering mind, and 
it is wandering for the simple reason that it has no stores 
with which to feed attention. 

Laws of Attention, The first general law of attention is 
that it cannot be continuously sustained. "It comes in 
beats." It is like trying to photograph a moving body 
which is constantly getting out of focus. It is like trying to 
keep a small insect in the field of vision of a microscope. 
The mind must continually be brought back into focus, for, 
says Professor James, even "voluntary attention is only a 
momentary affair." In order that attention may be con- 
tinuously fixed upon any subject the subject must con- 
tinuously show new aspects, must stimulate new curiosity, 
must bring up new questions, must change at every moment. 
How often in our reading or in our listening to sermons do 
we. find suddenly that we are thinking of something else! 

Then, again, to gain and hold our attention a subject 
must be interesting. It must in some way be connected 
with the vital things of oiu- life. A mere track in the sand 



96 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

is usually too trivial a thing to look at twice, but what if it 
be the track of our lost baby ? Nothing could be more dull 
reading than a time-table, but what if we have missed our 
train home and suspect that there is no other train before 
next day? Then, too, attention, even when it can be held 
for a time to one thing, rapidly declines in vigor. The first 
effect of Niagara is to astound the senses, but after a while 
it puts one to sleep. Sharp scolding may at first win atten- 
tion for a teacher, but if it be continued long enough, it will 
have no more effect than ordinary words. There must be 
variety of stimulus. 

Pedagogical Application. It was the opinion of Dr. Rosen- 
krantz that "to education the conception of attention is the 
most important of all those derived from psychology." 
Manifestly, there can be no education unless there is atten- 
tion on the part of the learners. One who has ever stood 
before a Sunday school class of children needs not to be told 
of the futility of teaching where there is no attention. Each 
little mind is engrossed with some affair of the moment; 
the teacher calls sharply for attention, and for an instant 
all face her; she begins her explanation and the door 
opens to admit the librarian or some late comer, and instantly 
she has lost everything. She begins with another bid for 
order, but nature has decreed that attention shall be a 
matter of moments. One little fellow drops his penny, or 
snatches a hat, or makes some curious noise, and the teacher 
has lost her class again. Teachers, then, must first learn the 
laws that govern attention, for without attention from those 
they are to instruct they might as well talk to the empty chairs. 

Some Practical Methods. The teacher, as we have already 
shown, must constantly change his program, especially with 
children. With adults also there must be constant change 
of appeal. Avoid monotony. Vary the work as much as 
possible. Have a short extract read, then show a map, then 
explain a point, then have an illustrative story given, then 
call for discussion, then cite authority. There is nothing 
that will kill a class more quickly than to have the teacher 
explain in the same tone throughout the whole hour. Many 
classes have been droned to death. How many in an audience 
ever Hsten to the whole sermon without mind- wandering ? 



ATTENTION 97 

Then, again, to quote Professor James: "Begin with the 
Hne of his [the pupil's] native interests, and offer him objects 
that have some immediate connection with these." Objects 
from nature will often gain for a long time the absorbed at- 
tention of a class of children. I heard some fifty sermons one 
year during my early childhood and the only thing I remember 
of them all is this beginning of one of them : " I picked up this 
little geranium flower as I came into the church this evening. 
Somebody had dropped it or thrown it away." It caught 
my attention. An idol, a rare book, a model of an ancient 
manuscript, a book of pressed wild flowers from Palestine, 
a bit of olive wood, a set of copies of good pictures, and the 
like will awaken attention in any class. A class of farmers 
will listen attentively to descriptions of Oriental farming 
methods; a class of workmen will be greatly interested in 
pictures and descriptions of tools or in discussions of ancient 
labor problems. The teacher must study his class for their 
native interests. 

Mind- Wandering. The tendency to let oneself get into a 
dreamy, wool-gathering state of mind should constantly be 
combated. There is no power of the intellect so precious 
as that of being able to bring one's whole mental being to a 
focus upon a task and to hold it there until the work is done. 
Mind-wandering, as we shall find later, is one of the reasons 
for poor memory, for memory is largely a matter of attention. 
One should cultivate the habit of mental singleness of aim. 
If one finds his mind wandering during the sermon, it may be 
a help to articulate the words silently to oneself. When one 
sets himself a mental task he should never allow himself to 
be attracted even for a moment to the contemplation of other 
things. Attention to some degree can become a habit. One 
should drill himself to study even in a room where there are 
playing children. If one is teaching mental control to a 
child, the aim should be to arouse some sense of personal 
interest, or curiosity, or higher motive. A child may be 
brought to learn to read by explaining to him the rich treasures 
locked up from him in print ; he may go through the drudgery 
of musical practice because when he is ready he will be per- 
mitted to play in a children's concert; he may learn a psalm 
because it will please mamma when he gets home. 



98 ELEAIENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

Fatigae. The teacher of children should be constantly on 
the watch for fatigue in her pupils, for nothing is more tire- 
some to little ones than the strain of attention. In many- 
city schools the teacher gets pupils who have been under 
strain in the public schools during all the week. There is a 
limit beyond which it is unsafe to try to compel attention. 
Small children should not be taught over fifteen minutes, 
and even during this period there should be constant change 
of subject. Larger children may be kept for half an hour, 
but the bowstring of attention must not be kept too taut. 
Change of method is the very soul of teaching. Now ques- 
tions are to be asked singly, now in concert; now the pupils 
are to sit, now to rise; now it is to be a story, now it is to be 
the story retold by a child ; now it is to be a concrete illus- 
tration, a nest or a flower; now it is a song. Even adult 
classes should not be required to give attention for over forty- 
five minutes. He is indeed a skillful teacher who can hold 
the attention of his class profitably for a longer period. 

Comenitis, the great Slavic educator (i 592-1671), summed 
up with great wisdom the methods of gaining attention, and 
in all the years since he has not been improved upon. He 
maintained that one should gain the attention of a class : 

1 . By always bringing before his pupils something pleasing 
and profitable, 

2. By introducing the subject of instruction in such a way 
as to commend it to them, or by stirring their intelligences 
into activity by inciting questions regarding it. 

3. By standing in a place elevated above the class, and 
requiring all eyes to be fixed on him. 

4. By aiding attention through the representation of 
everything to the senses as far as possible. 

5. By interrupting his instruction by frequent and per- 
tinent questions — for example: "What have I just said?" 

6. If the boy who has been asked a question should fail to 
answer, by leaping to the second, third, tenth, thirtieth, and 
asking the answer, without repeating the question. 

7. By occasionally demanding an answer from anyone in 
the whole class, and thus stirring up wholesome rivalry. 

8. By giving an opportunity to anyone to ask questions 
when the lesson is finished. 



CHAPTER XV 
PERCEPTION 

Perception. "We have seen how the great throbbing, seeth- 
ing, multitudinous world outside of us beats at the doors of 
our senses and is conveyed in ten thousand sensations to that 
something called consciousness, and we have seen how very 
few of these sensations are admitted to the inner sanctum. 
The doorkeeper is very discreet and careful. Once admitted 
to consciousness, however, the sensation must be recognized 
and accounted for. The process of doing this we call per- 
ception. A loud boom, vibrating keenly upon my ear drums, 
impinges upon consciousness. Attention is spontaneous. 
Instantly there is a call for interpretation : what was it ? To 
the little child it would be sensation and nothing else. He 
has no experience, no testimony from any of his faculties to 
guide him. But I perceive instantly that a gun has been 
discharged. The sound has occurred before in my experience. 
Several of my faculties unite in their testimony and the matter 
is settled in a flash, "Perception," then, to quote the defini- 
tion of Professor Halleck, "is that power which interprets the 
raw materials given by sensations." 

Sense Perceptions Come First. One finds an unknown 
substance and seeks to identify it. The first process is to 
telegraph to headquarters, as it were, as much sense informa- 
tion as is possible: feeling, odor, sound, appearance, taste. 
This done, the next thing is to let the mental powers struggle 
with it. The fineness of the sense-report is often the most 
important part. Two varieties of fine flour are brought to a 
miller to determine which is which. After applying perhaps 
sight and taste and smell and touch he decides without hesita- 
tion, but his decision depends upon the delicacy of his senses. 
Should disease blunt them, his power to perceive would be 
gone. The proper use of the senses comes only from long 
experience. To a blind man whose sight has been restored 
obiects at a distance seem to be near enough to grasp. The 

99 



loo ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

sense is undeveloped. His sense of touch, however, may be 
so dehcate that he can feel out the inscription on a coin. The 
more finely trained our senses, then, the larger our world — 
the more we can perceive. It should be one of the most 
important parts of education to develop the senses of the 
child. We shall speak of this more fully under the head of 
Observation. 

The Limits of Perception. Perception comes only through 
ideas that we already possess. The savage who has never 
heard a gun will call the report thunder. It is impossible for 
him to perceive the true cause of the sound, for there is no 
previous idea to interpret it for him. Each perception is 
based on an earlier perception. The struggle of young chil- 
dren with the new world about them illustrates perfectly this 
law of the mind. " See, mamma, the pansy has wings," said 
the little girl when first she saw a butterfly, and a little fellow 
seeing a snowstorm for the first time came in greatly excited 
to report that God was shaking out his feather beds. With 
each of these children perception had to be in terms of previous 
experience. All of us are limited in this way. It is the duty 
of perception to reduce the universe from confusion to order, 
but we must remember that ' * Mind is never fully able to cope 
with the world." The ear can detect vibrations only within 
a certain limited range, and so with the eye. There is a whole 
world of sensation on either side of this which our senses are 
too gross to perceive. 

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; 
Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. 

We can interpret the world only through the testimony of 
five very limited senses. " If we had three or four new senses 
added, this might seem like a new world to us," 

"Words and Ideas* If the mind has such difficulty to inter- 
pret and classify when the new object itself is actually before 
it, how much greater will be the difficulty when only the word 
denoting that object is presented. What does a young child 



PERCEPTION loi 

know of a mile, or a hundred dollars, or two thirds? One 
trouble with the older education has been its insistence upon 
learning by means of words to the exclusion of everything 
else. Chemistry and physics were once taught as mere book 
subjects without a single experiment. The boy who knows 
nothing of a cow or a squirrel or a tiger except what he has 
gathered from the pictures in his book has very vague ideas. 
One small boy declared that a camel was just the length of his 
thumb nail, for he had measured one in the book, and a little 
girl supposed a squirrel was three feet high. 

The Plane of the Learner. We have in our lessons in child 
study already discussed pretty fully the pedagogical bearings 
of this phase of psychology. We found, to quote Dr. Gregory, 
that "the language used in teaching must be common to 
teacher and learner," and that "the truth to be taught must 
be learned through truth already known." Put into psy- 
chological terms this means simply that sensations may be 
admitted to the field of consciousness, but there will be no 
correct perception unless there is material already in this 
field by which to interpret them. This applies to adults just 
as much as to children. The teacher, the lecturer, the preacher, 
the writer, must constantly adapt himself to those with whom 
he is working. He who is teaching a Bible selection to a 
class of college men must use different methods from what he 
would use were it a class of uneducated laborers. One would 
not write the same article for the Youth's Companion as for 
the Psychological Journal. There is no real teacher who has 
not at some time awakened suddenly to a realization that the 
lesson is simply words, words, words to the pupil, A student 
once recited glibly to me that the War of Independence was 
"divided into three periods: remonstrance, resistance, recon- 
struction"; but when I asked him what these three words 
meant he was silent. Students in English composition some- 
times speak of "infinitives," "substantives," "demonstra- 
tives," "coordinate conjunctions," voicing their text-books 
like parrots, but they may not respond when the teacher asks, 
"What do you mean by that?" It should be the aim of 
every good teacher to find the level of his class and to allow 
nothing to enter into the recitation which the learner cannot 
perceive. 



102 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

Importance of Early Training. Some one has said that we 
receive no new ideas after we are thirty. Certain it is that 
what we learn in childhood influences our whole after life. 
If the father is a Democrat or a Methodist or an outspoken 
disbeliever in the tariff or Calvinism or Walt Whitman or 
anything else, it will have its effect on the son'^ later thinking. 
In the words of Professor James: " Hardly ever is a language 
learned after twenty spoken without a foreign accent; hardly 
ever can a youth transferred to the society of his betters 
unlearn the nasality and other vices of speech bred in him by 
the associations of his growing years." "Whatever," de- 
clares Halleck, "we learn early in life will influence us for all 
future time. . . . We may as well expect our bodies to escape 
the force of gravity as our minds to elude the deflecting power 
of all former associations and experience." Thus the teacher 
of children has upon him an enormous responsibility. What 
he puts into the life is to color and influence all of the later 
thinking. 

Observation. The Sunday school teacher who has his 
pupils but one hour a week cannot hope to train their powers 
of observation as can the teacher in the public school, but he 
can do something. In the first place, there should be a con- 
stant efifort to inculcate accuracy. Superficiality is the bane 
of the present age. It is easy for the learner to get but half 
the idea and so get nothing at all. Any practical teacher 
will tell how hard it is to make even a simple announcement 
and have it understood by all in the class in precisely the same 
way. The half observations of children are accountable for 
many seeming lies. The child did not mean to tell an untruth; 
the trouble was that he did not observe accurately. And, 
after all, there will be as many interpretations as there are 
observers. Suppose I say to my class : "Once a little speckled 
fawn came out of a wood and lay down in a bed of daisies. 
Soon a wolf came by and fixed his eyes right upon the fawn, 
but he did not see it because it looked just like the bed of 
daisies." Each child will get a different conception of the 
story, for each can take away only what he brings. The 
words, "fawn," "wood," "bed," "daisies," "wolf," bring to 
each some particular image, but one Can have little idea what 
it is. If all present had seen a fawn and a bed of daisies and 



PERCEPTION 103 

a wolf, and had been shown how to observe them carefully, 
the difference in the mental images of the children would be 
far less. To understand exactly what happened, therefore, 
requires experience and information. There should be much 
of nature study at first hand even in the Sunday school. The 
children should be encouraged to bring various objects for a 
little museum; they should be taught the ways of birds and 
insects and the nature of flowers. They are studying the 
handiwork of God. 

The Cttltivation of Perception* The student should be led 
whenever it is possible to learn facts from the testimony of his 
own senses. Certain observation games are excellent. A 
number of objects are placed for a moment before the pupil 
and then withdrawn. He is then asked to tell what he saw. 
The younger Houdin could take a single glance into a shop 
window and then write a list of forty articles displayed there. 
Children should be made to see the beauty of poetry and of 
biblical selections; they should be taught to read slowly and 
carefully in a few good books rather than to rush pell mell 
through many books, getting only a glimpse here and there. 
Above all, they should be given the correct point of view 
everything should have about it an air of first-hand knowledge 
and of absolute accuracy. 

From the Known to the Unknown is the law of all teaching. 
The teacher who does not understand this must learn it. 
Every illustration must be made after careful consideration 
of the ones who are to hear it. For country people one must 
use one point of approach ; for city people, another. If you 
know a man's business or trade, you know better how to 
explain a matter to him. We must begin to build where the 
learner's knowledge leaves off, and we must give him material 
which can be interpreted in terms of that which he already 
knows. Otherwise there will be no complete perception. 



CHAPTER XVI 
THE MEMORY 

Definition. Perhaps the most simple definition of memory 
is that given by Professor James : "Memory is the knowledge 
of a former state of mind after it has already once dropped 
out of consciousness." The fundamental fact about memory 
seems to be that when sensations are brought into the field of 
attention they make some sort of impression upon brain cells, 
or mental substance, so that when the same sensation comes 
again we recognize it as familiar. This fact is the basis of 
perception. We found that' the present sensation in the 
field of consciousness is interpreted in the light of previous 
sensations of the same kind. This could not be unless those 
previous sensations had made some permanent impress. In 
other words, "Perception is the child of memory." 

The Chief Requisites of Memory may be reduced to two: 
(i) retention, and (2) reproduction. The first should not be 
misunderstood. The old idea that memory is a kind of filing 
case or marvelous card index where impressions are stowed 
away carefully assorted for instant use is no longer held by 
psychologists. Rather is it believed that "every organ, 
every nerve cell, has its own memory. There is a memory of 
the eye, a memory of the ear, a memory of the skin (for touch , 
temperature, etc.), a memory of the muscles, and so on in- 
definitely." It is as if the sensation left its mark in the 
proper cells like a fold in a piece of paper, and when the same 
sensation came again the paper under exactly the same con- 
dition tended to fold in the same place. The deepness of the 
impression would depend upon the amount of attention given 
the sensation. A man walks by me on the street and I 
scarcely admit the fact to the field of consciousness. The 
episode is swiftly forgotten; it has made little impress any- 
where. But suppose I know that the man is the President. I 
am all attention, and as a result I remember even the slightest 
detail of the episode. Memory, therefore, is the revival of a 

104 



THE MEMORY 105 

past experience, and the more strongly that experience is im- 
pressed upon consciousness the more easily will it be revived. 

Association. But it is not enough that the impressions be 
retained; there must be power to reproduce them at will. 
This seems to be intimately connected with the process of 
association. Our ideas go not singly but in groups. The 
mind is exceedingly sensitive to the law of habit. It tends 
always to do again just what it did at the previous occasion. 
Two men are introduced to me at the same time. When 
next I see one of them I think involuntarily of the other. 
One thing always calls up another, like cause and effect, 
means and end. Santa Claus, Johnstown, Valley Forge, 
-Admiral Dewey, Mount Nebo, Red Sea — not one of these 
exists alone. Instantly another idea is associated. One may 
suddenly find himself thinking of something a thousand miles 
from his immediate environment. What brought it up? 
Often a companion will say, "How did you happen to be 
thinking of that?" Sometimes it is exceedingly interesting 
to go back step by step and trace out the history of a thought 
now in our consciousness. A friend tries to make me recall 
a man whom I have apparently forgotten, and to do so men- 
tions various situations in which I have seen him. I at length 
remember the man by associating him with a place or an 
event or a peculiarity. Reproduction, then, depends largely 
upon association. 

The Education of the Memory. There is no need for our 
purpose of going more fully into the analysis of the process of 
memory. The two facts already noted give us the main key 
to all memory training. We may deduce three laws: the 
memory may be educated by "intensifying the image by 
attention, by keeping it ready by conscious repetition," and 
by a judicious use of association. 

(i) Intensifying the Image. Many poor memories are the 
results of hazy perception. There is a lazy habit of mind that 
never observes closely, that jumps at conclusions, that reads 
hastily and superficially, and as a restilt has no deep im- 
pressions of anything. The cultivation of attention and 
perception is at the same time a cultivation of memory. We 
remember what we are interested in. The college "Varsity 
man" can remember every score of all the football games for 



io6 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

three years back and, besides, can give the record of every 
prominent football man in the country. At the same time 
he may find it almost impossible to remember a few simple 
formiilas in his mathematics. We remember what we are 
intensely interested in; hence to remember a subject get 
interested in it. There are other ways of intensifying the 
image : advertisers often associate some ridiculous image with 
their wares; or make the matter striking by means of rhyme 
or alliteration. We all remember the phrase, " Rum, Roman- 
ism, and Rebellion." Another method is the cultivation of 
the power to visualize. Art teachers have their pupils look 
intently at a vase for a time, and then, removing the object, 
have the drawing made from the visual image. One should 
in his reading frequently shut his eyes and try to reproduce 
the landscape described. The intensifying of the image will 
help the memory. 

(2) Repetition. Weak impressions may often be strength- 
ened by repetition — not mere rote repetition without atten- 
tion, but by a conscious and careful review. A child may 
write a word automatically fifty times and even then misspell 
it. Review, however, is necessary if we are to retain. If we 
did not speak our own language for ten years, we should find 
that we had forgotten much of it, and would have to go over 
it again with attention. Hence the value of the review at the 
close of the term or of the quarter's lessons. It refreshes the 
memory. Since, then, it is the tendency of the mind for im- 
pressions to lose sharpness with age, frequent repetition of im- 
portant things should be the rule governing our mental habits. 

(3) G)rreIation. We have seen how ideas tend to flock 
together. As far as possible we should take advantage of 
this fact both when we are memorizing and when we are trying 
to recall. If we can bind new facts to old, we are more sure 
of retaining them. A study of Latin and French will enable 
us to remember many English words. We may remember 
the size and shape of Palestine by associating it with the state 
of New Hampshire, which it resembles in those particulars. 
It will help a class to remember that Bethlehem is six miles 

from Jerusalem by saying, " It is as. far as from here to ," 

supplying some town six miles away. Association is the 
basis of many elaborate systems for strengthening the memory, 



THE MEMORY 107 

as, for example, Pick's and Loisette's. To illustrate: Sup- 
pose we were to remember the capital of Nebraska ; we might 
say: "Nebraska — Ne brass key — chain — link — Lincoln." 
We may sometimes use an alphabetical order to aid memory; 
for instance, the chronological order of the novels in the 
Leather Stocking Series is Deerslayer, Last of the Mohicans, 
Pathfinder, Pioneers, Prairie. This is also the alphabetical 
order. A small boy sent to the grocery store for tea, sugar, 
apples, lemons, eggs, found that by arrangement the first 
letters could be made to spell s-t-e-a-1. He was able then 
to trust his memory. With most of these "memory cures" it 
requires considerable memory simply to master the system. 
The whole power is required to run the machine. The prin- 
ciple, however, may often be used to great advantage. One 
man who had a remarkable memory for faces said that he had 
gained the power by pronouncing distinctly to himself the 
name of each person introduced to him, and then carefully 
associating the person with something or with some one else. 
A college professor of my acquaintance always says when he 
meets an old graduate, "Let's see — your seat was in the 
second row near the end — O, you are Mr. Smith, of '97." 
Association is the secret of the string tied around the finger, 
of the bit of paper pasted to the watch face, or the unusual 
object placed on the dinner table or the desk. 

The Verbal and the Logical Memory. There are two ways 
of learning a lesson from a text-book: the one is to commit 
the words parrot-like, and the other is to follow the logical 
thought of the page and to recite the contents in one's own 
words. In almost all cases the latter method is the only 
practical one. There is no better way of spoiling one's think- 
ing power than to commit the propositions of geometry to 
memory and then recite them mechanically. This rote 
method is the basis of the Chinese educational system, and 
it explains in a great degree the singular lack of progress 
in the history of China. There are, however, many things 
that must be learned by rote. Dr. Schaeffer gives eight 
classes of things that should be lodged in the mechanical 
memory : 

;i. A reasonable vocabulary of words in the mother tongue. 

2. A working vocabulary of words in the foreign languages 



io8 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

which the circumstances or occupation of a student will com- 
pel him to use. 

3. The combinations of addition up to one hundred, the 
multiplication table, and the tables of weights and measures. 

4. Algebraic and other formulas which constantly recur in 
the higher mathematics. 

5. The fundamental formulas in chemistry, physics, and 
other sciences. 

6. Declensions, conjugations, comparison, and genders of 
words in such foreign languages as the pupil expects to read, 
write, and speak. 

7. The most necessary fact-lore of history and geography. 

8. Choice selections from the best literature, and such* 
definitions as mark a triumph of intellect in the history of 
human thought. 

For the Sunday school teacher the "choice selections" of 
the eighth class will resolve themselves into memory passages 
from the most vital parts of the Bible, choice poems from the 
best poets, and the great hymns of the church. During the 
memory period of childhood the greatest care should be taken 
to stock the memory with Scripture and hymn and poem, but 
care should be taken to do this wisely. Material should not 
be poured in in haphazard manner, and it should not be of such 
a nature that the child cannot understand it. Then it should 
be reviewed and rereviewed until it becomes a part of his 
very life. 

The Abuse of the Memory* Disastrous effects of overload- 
ing the verbal memory at the expense of the logical we have 
already dwelt upon; we have also touched upon the mental 
havoc wrought by superficial habits of reading and of thought. 
Of the latter too much cannot be said. Pupils should be 
taught constantly to attend, to observe, to form definite 
visualized images, and to cure their mind-wandering as 
quickly as they can. They should be taught to read with 
attention. After they have finished a page they should look 
away from it and try to repeat the substance of it. They 
should not skip and skim, but should read every word with 
care; otherwise they will destroy their memories as well as 
their powers of attention. One who confesses that he has a 
poor memory is often confessing at the same time slovenly 



THE MEMORY 109 

mental habits and a superficial, wandering mind. "I can't 
remember my lesson," is equivalent to saying, "I am not 
interested in my lesson." Another abuse of memory is the 
cramming system often found in schools and colleges. Mate- 
rial gathered in so hasty a way cannot be permanent. It 
goes as quickly as It comes. Finally, to abuse one's health is 
to abuse one's memory, for body and mind are so closely 
woven together that to impair one is to impair the other^ 
No part of the mind seems more susceptible to bodily in- 
fluence than the memory. 



CHAPTER XVII 
IMAGINATION 

Definitions* We have already seen that the material in 
our minds has come through the gateway of perception. It 
has all made an impress somewhere in the mental substance 
so that it can be brought back again into the field of con- 
sciousness; or, to express it in the words of Professor James, 
"Sensations once experienced modify the nervous organiza- 
tion so that copies of them arise again in the mind after the 
original outward stimulus is gone." These copies are gener- 
ally known as images. We may define the term "image" as 
"a picture produced in the mind by the representative or 
imaging power and without the aid of direct perception." It 
is not alone a visual picture, for other senses than sight 
may produce images. One may call up images of sound or 
smell or taste or touch. Imagination, then, is "the act or 
faculty of forming a mental image of an object; the act or 
power of presenting to consciousness objects other than 
those directly and at that time produced by the action of the 
senses." 

The Scope of the Imagination. Anything that has been 
once perceived by the mind may be brought up again as an 
image, either as a whole or in part. Memory simply recalls 
some previous sensation with more or less accuracy, "and the 
self must recognize it as having been an experience of its own 
in a more or less definite time or place." Imagination, how- 
ever, is unlimited. The image may not be recognized at all; 
we may declare that no such thing ever has come into our 
experience; it may be one isolated phase of some previous 
perception or it may be a combination of isolated phases from 
a dozen perceptions. Thus we may imagine a creature with 
the head of a lion, the body of a sheep, the feet of a bird, and 
the tail of a lizard. Classical literature is full of imaginary 
creatures like centaurs and satyrs and harpies. We may 
construct a new world like that which Alice found in Wonder- 



IMAGINATION in 

land. As in a kaleidoscope, the materials may fall into 
millions of patterns. There is, however, one imperative 
limit to imagination: it can furnish no materials which are 
not already in the mind. We can imagine a creature the like 
of which never was and never will be, but all the various parts 
of it will be recognizable. The most original monsters of the 
ancient mythology were made up simply by combining the 
parts of well-known animals. The dragon was a magnified 
combination of lizard, bat, crocodile, and snake. The mon- 
sters mentioned in the book of Daniel were all made from 
earthly components. We can picture heaven only in terms 
of this earth. The most rapt visions of the bbok of Revela- 
tion bring in no materials but those which had come into 
the earthly experience of the writer: heaven has streets of 
gold, and gates of precious stones, and there is no night. In 
other words, the imagination of man is powerless to work 
with any other materials than those furnished by the realm of 
experience; and even if some heavenly revelation should be 
made, the imagination of man could not grasp it. With our 
present sense-materials, however, new combinations may be 
made infinite in form and variety. 

Passive Imagination, It is customary to divide imagina- 
tion into two classes: the passive (or reproductive) and the 
active (or creative). The first simply reproduces images 
which have been stored in the memory. When the old man 
says, "I can shut my eyes and see how every man in that 
room looked, though it was fifty years ago," he is making 
use of memory and passive imagination. I say, "Capitol 
at Washington," and instantly an image comes before 
your consciousness. When the mind wanders, a succes- 
sion of unrelated images may come to us. When the little 
child sees his mother get his coat and hat he is all animation, 
for association brings up the image of his last walk out 
of doors. 

Creative Imagination. But the most important variety of 
imagination is the creative, which deliberately recombines 
former experiences into new images. Children exhibit this in a 
thousand different ways. It is one of the chief things which 
separate man from the lower animals. The child has before 
him a shapeless pile of blocks, and he cries: "See, mamma, 



112 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

I'm going to build a church." Before he touches a single 
block some sort of image is before his mind. He may alter 
his plan a dozen times before he finishes, but he is working 
always from a pattern furnished by imagination. Sir Chris- 
topher Wren did no more when he built Saint Paul's. Con- 
structive imagination has been at the basis of all industrial 
progress. The inventor must have a mental image of what 
he seeks and must combine and recombine until he reaches 
the consummation of his dream. He must see the machine 
in the raw iron just as the sculptor must see the perfect statue 
in the marble block. 

Literary Creation. The poet must be "of imagination all 
compact." So indeed must be the creative artist in every line 
of literary art. The writer who told the story of David and 
Goliath must have had a lively mental picture of it before his 
mind ; Scott when he wrote the description of the siege of the 
castle of Front de Boeuf must have had before him an image 
almost as sharp as if it were reality ; Dickens saw his scenes so 
vividly that he would burst into hilarious laughter or violent 
weeping as he recorded what his imagination "bodied forth." 
The great writer must necessarily have a great fund of experi- 
ence from which to draw. The more he has seen of nature 
and man, the more combinations will his imagination be able 
to make and the richer will they be in quality. So full of 
human life was Shakespeare that half a dozen professions 
have claimed him. His sense-perception was so fully trained 
that there is hardly a flower or a bird or an odor or an aspect 
of nature in his native Warwick which he has not noted, 
and he knew human life no less well. He was the greatest 
English master of literary art because of all Englishmen he 
had filled himself the most completely with the materials for 
imagination. 

Literary Interpretation. To read literature requires con- 
structiye imagination. How can one who knows nothing 
of the marigold get the full bearing of these lines of Shakes- 
peare ? 

The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun 

And with him rises weeping. 

If I say, "A little forest-bound lake in New Hampshire with 
the mountains fir-coated and hoary-headed arising sheer 



IMAGINATION 113 

almost from the waters," everyone will get some sort of picture, 
but he who knows only the Alps will have an Alpine image, 
and the dweller in the Sierras will have one far different. The 
more experience one has had with life, the more intelligently 
can he read, for he has more material withwhich to interpret 
the imaginations of others. 

The Culture of the Imagination. And this leads to the first 
suggestion to the Sunday school teacher : Add to the materials 
which the pupil has for the interpretation of literature. A. 
Uttle girl who was hearing the story of Joseph supposed that 
when the money was hidden in the sack it was concealed in a 
garment. With her "sack" meant only a coat. Children 
who know nothing of camels, or caravans, or shepherds, or 
altars, and the like, will image the story in a very vague and 
inaccurate way. There should be a true image for every term 
in the story. It will be helpful if the teacher of small children 
carefully explains certain things before the story begins. 
When once started, however, with the telling there should be 
no halt for explanation. 

Pictures are of great value as aids to the imagination. 
Most of us can call up a mental image of the pyramids, but 
few of us have seen them. Pictures of Oriental costume and 
life should be used freely in all classes. A set of Tissot's 
drawings is valuable for Sunday school work. All of the 
houses which deal in Sunday school requisites furnish plenty 
of picture material at little cost. Only the best should be 
used. 

The Culture of the Visualizing Power. Even the poorest 
Sunday school, however, may have pictures. The teacher 
may paint them himself — upon the imaginations of his pupils. 
He should often say, "Use your imagination a moment now 
and try to see this scene just as it happened." Then he 
should reproduce it as vividly as he can, bringing it home to 
their imaginations by using materials with which they are 
perfectly familiar. Illustrations and comparisons help the 
imagination. In teaching the life of Christ look up distances 
carefully, then say, "Why, it is as if they went from here 
to — ." The more you compare with known things the 
more you help the imagination. 

Various Helps. When the story is told to children they 



114 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

should be questioned about it and set aright if they have in 
any way misapprehended. They should be taught to tell the 
story back again in their own words. A story can be half 
told and the children may be asked to finish it. Original 
work is of the greatest aid in the culture of the imagination. 
It is sometimes advisable to have one of the members of an 
adult class write a careful description of the places mentioned 
in the lesson and read it to the class. Farrar's Life of Christ 
abounds in graphic descriptions of the localities and life of the 
New Testament. There can be no better variation at times 
than to have short extracts read from this most vivid of all 
the lives of Jesus. Above all, the teacher should strive 
earnestly to translate the lesson into mental images. The 
boy who said he had studied about Moses until he thought he 
should know him if he met him on the street must have had an 
exceptionally good teacher. What mental picture comes to 
you when you think of David or Jacob or Paul or Peter? 
Sharpen this impression and stamp it upon your pupils until 
it becomes a part of their lives. 

Finally, do not give children insipid, stilted literature. 
"Those painfully didactic, namby-pamby, goody-goody 
stories in little green books with chromo covers," says Dr. 
Krohn, "such as used to be presented to us as a 'Reward of 
merit' by our Sunday school teachers in olden times, never 
succeeded in gaining the attention of the average child, be- 
cause they were not properly gauged to fit his experiences or 
evoke his interest." They were outside his world. The 
book for the child should give free play to the imagination; 
it should be free from materials and allusions that are beyond 
his grasp ; but, on the other hand, it should not be too sim- 
ple; and it should leave behind it something of permanent 
value. 

Sympathy and Imagination. Without imagination one 
cannot have true sympathy and altruism. The ability to 
look at life from the standpoint of one's neighbor is largely a 
matter of imagination. "An unimaginative person," says 
Ruskin, "can neither be reverent nor kind." Boys are cruel 
to the birds and small animals simply because they have not 
been taught to realize that they suffer just as people sufiPer 
under the same circumstances. It should be the duty of the 



IMAGINATION 115 

Sunday school teacher to awaken the feelings of pity for all 
animal life. She should impress the fact that the bird robbed 
of its young feels as his parents would feel if their children were 
cruelly taken away. The proper training of the imagination, 
then, is a training of the elements of pity and sympathy and 
love for neighbors and for all mankind. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
THOUGHT 

The Mind a Unit. We have now, in the briefest and most 
general way, shown how sensations are admitted by attention 
to that something which we call consciousness, and we have 
seen how perception acts as interpreter, how memory preserves 
for future use, and how imagination recalls this recorded 
matter in the form of images. It must not be gathered, 
however, that the mind moves only by mechanical steps. A 
thought is not manufactured like a shoe, which must go 
through the hands of twenty men in regular order and receive 
something from each. All of these functions of the mind may 
be in operation at the same instant. The process is infinitely 
complicated. The material which comes in every moment 
is of a thousand different kinds, and the whole mental being 
must act upon it all simultaneously. Perception, for instance, 
involves almost all of the faculties, and so do memory and 
imagination. The mind is not divided into departments like 
a business house, each one to take charge independently of a 
single phase of the work. It is rather a marvelous unit, and 
we study its different functions separately simply for our 
convenience. It is like studying a great man's character: it 
is a whole, and not a thing made up of consecutive steps or of 
isolated parts, yet we conprehend it better by looking at its 
different phases, such as honesty, conscientiousness, stead- 
fastness, etc. 

Thotfght. A library into which books and pictures and all 
kinds of printed matter were gathered in haphazard confusion 
would be a very poor kind of library. There would be needed 
a skilled librarian to classify and arrange and compare and to 
make cross references and all kinds of helps for assimilation. 
To arrange the materials of the intellect, to select from the 
mass this and that and put them together for comparison and 
classification — this is the duty of thought. Without this fac- 
ulty there would be no assimilation of the materials gathered 

ii6 



THOUGHT 117 

by perception. Thought is to the intellectual life what diges- 
tion is to the physical: out of the miscellaneous mass of food 
furnished it, it re-creates new material and new hfe. 

Steps in the Process. It will be needless for our purpose to 
trace at length the steps in the process of thought. We need 
to treat only of judgment and reasoning. Judgment is "the 
factdty by which relations are perceived and formulated." 
Certain materials in the intellect are brought into the field of 
attention and compared with other materials there. A like- 
ness is found, or a dissimilarity, or an association of some kind, 
and as a result a new idea may be created. This is a judg- 
ment. For example, some meat has been stolen; there are 
dog's tracks near— the meat was stolen by a dog. The high 
tides come about an hour later each day ; the moon rises about 
an hour later each day — the tides must be connected in some 
way with the moon. "It is seldom, however, that the mate- 
rial is exhausted by a single judgment. As a rule, the forming 
of one judgment suggests the forming of another; so that we 
have a train of judgments, or reasoning." For example, 
after careful observation I form these judgments : This stone is 
flint ; it shows signs of human workmanship ; it was found in a 
stratiun belonging to the Tertiary Period ; the strata had not 
been disturbed before I began my investigations; therefore 
man existed on earth during the Tertiary Period. 

The Syllogism. In the terms of logic, reasoning proceeds 
by means of syllogisms. There must first be a major premise, 
which is a judgment of a general nature stated in the form of a 
general law. For example, All animals having cloven hoofs 
chew the cud. Then follows the minor premise, which is a judg- 
ment concerning a particular case: This animal has cloven 
hoofs. The third term is the conclusion: Therefore this ani- 
mal chews the cud. Not often do we consciously take these 
three steps, yet they are really present in all our reasoning. 
The farmer looks at the sky and says, "It will rain to-morrow." 
He is not conscious of having made use of any premises, yet, 
nevertheless, his thinking took something like the following 
form : "When clouds stream up in the west in dull, ragged cat- 
tails it will rain soon. These clouds," etc. 

It will be seen at once that the value of the syllogism de- 
pends wholly upon the truth of the premises. Manifestly one 



ii8 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

cannot invent a general law offhand and then use it as a major 
premise for the finding of other laws. Modern science rests 
upon induction, and by induction we mean the making of a 
general law only after thousands of observations. Before the 
chemist can say, "Gold is 'soluble only in aqua regia," he must 
know that every possible solvent has been tried. Hence the 
value of one's reasoning depends upon his general knowledge, 
for from his general knowledge comes his ability to form 
accurate judgments. 

Errors in Reasoning arise chiefly from lack of care with the 
premises. Children and even adults often generalize from a 
single experience. A little boy cautioned me at one time to 
keep a safe distance from a certain horse, for "white horses 
always kick." An old Pennsylvania farmer laid down the 
law that shingles laid during the increase of the moon always 
curl up. He had tried it once and had found out. A friend 
will advise you to take Quack's Bitters: "I took a bottle one 
spring and felt much better; they always cure." Physi- 
cians base their knowledge of medicines upon the obser- 
vations of thousands of trained observers through many 
years, and not upon a single experience. Most people are 
prone to judge their neighbors from too slight experience. 
If a man is late at an appointment twice in succession, some 
one is sure to say, "O, he's always late." This is poor think- 
ing because it is bad judgment. Judgments should be made 
with care and from fullness of experience. There are excep- 
tions even to the most sweeping laws. For instance, all cloven 
hoofed animals do not chew the cud. There are two excep- 
tions: the pig and the tapir. The teacher should constantly 
be on the watch for hasty generalizations, and should correct 
them with care. He should not allow jumping at conclusions 
and the offhand manufacture of sweeping general laws. Chil- 
dren especially should be taught to think twice before speak- 
ing, to be careful about letting personal considerations and 
prejudices influence judgment, and, finally, to weigh both 
sides and try if possible to see the standpoint of those against 
whom the judgment is to be made. By a careful supervision 
a habit of mind may be thus inculcated in young pupils which 
will be of benefit to all of their future thinking. 

For the Teacher no function of the intellect is of more value 



THOUGHT 119 

than is that of thought. All teaching appeals directly to the 
thinking powers. The little child is incapable of much reason- 
ing, yet even he is continually forming judgments and making 
use of the syllogism. Owing to his lack of experience, how- 
ever, his judgments are very often worthless. "White cows 
give white milk"; when it thunders "God is putting in his 
coal"; "This man is the best man in town because he gives 
me more candy than any other," are typical childish judg- 
ments. To train such children to think correctly it is neces- 
sary to add to their stock of knowledge. The first training, 
then, should be in the formation of proper judgments. The 
pupil should be stimulated constantly to think, but at every 
step he should be given the materials with which to think. 
There should be little mere rote teaching, mere memorizing of 
material which the pupil does not understand. The memory 
cannot do the work of the reflective powers. There should be 
avoidance, too, of the pouring-in process. To talk all the 
time is to paralyze the thinking powers of the learner. The 
teacher, on the contrary, should stimulate the pupil to think 
for himself. By adroit hints and skillful questioning he 
should suggest comparisons which will bring the new idea, 
and he should at the same time furnish such thought-material 
that the pupil will be eager to think the matter out and reach 
the conclusion desired. For instance, one might talk five 
minutes to a class of children about the seed of the maple tree 
and make very little impression. If, however, he were to hold 
a seed up and ask, "What do these two projections look like?" 
some one would be sure to say "Little wings." Then the con- 
versation could be carried on something like this : 

"Why should the seed have little wings?" ^ 

"To fly away." 

"Why should the seed want to. fly away?" 

After the teacher had selected the best answer he could then 
say: "I saw once a maple tree all by itself on a hillside miles 
from any other maple tree. Who do you suppose planted it ?" 
This is the so-called " Socratic method" of teaching, which we 
shall discuss at length in the section to be devoted to methods 
of teaching. When it is skillfully used there is no more effect- 
ive stimulus to thought. 

Thotight Cttltare* Since the materials of thought come, all 



120 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

of them, from attention and perception, it is obvious that one 
may increase the thinking power by training these two facul- 
ties. To give attention one must be interested. No boy ever 
had to be drilled to give attention to a ball game. Boys will 
build in trees houses the construction of which requires much 
careful thought and much labor; they will devise traps and 
games and solve puzzles all with the greatest eagerness. There 
is no need to train the boy to think along these lines. There is 
no need, indeed, to train the boy along any line in which his 
interest can be fully aroused. All he needs is information and 
skill. The teacher, then, whether it be on week day or Sunday, 
should be seeking constantly to arouse some dominating 
interest in the pupil's life. First interest, then attention, then 
thought, is the rule of teaching. When the pupil is interested 
fully he will think — indeed, it will be impossible for him not 
to think. The teacher needs only to furnish the right ma- 
terials and to lead in the right direction. For instance, one 
teacher of a class of men began the study of the book of Luke. 
He asked one of the class to read the book through and to 
mark all passages illustrating Christ's lack of race prejudice; 
another was to bring in passages illustrating his attitude toward 
government; another, his treatment of women. Each pupil 
was assigned a topic, and after careful study of the marked 
passages was to write a short generalization about it, backing 
up every statement by references. As a result the class soon 
had a comprehensive introduction to the book of Luke all of 
their own composition, and the teacher had done nothing but 
guide and question and direct. The class was thinking for 
itself, and a half dozen of its exercises were of more worth than 
would have been a whole winter devoted to mere lecturing. 
Beckoning to "Wider Fields. The inferior teacher tells every- 
thing, sometimes twice and tjirice over. He tries to smooth 
away every difficulty; he goes over every point volubly, and 
talks and talks and talks. The mind of the learner is borne 
along on a stream of words until dreaminess and drowsiness 
come from the smooth-gliding motion. The true teacher, 
however, tells only what he must. He arouses the interest 
of the learner and then lets him complete the matter himself. 
He invites ever to difficulties, but he shows how the difficulty 
is simply a barrier which separates the learner from delightful 



THOUGHT 121 

prospects, a barrier which he must leap himself. The true 
teacher, therefore, beckons on and on, and as the learner 
follows it is always to larger horizons. No teacher should 
slavishly follow the text-book. He should draw all the time 
upon the experiences of everyday life. He should never go 
before his class without having thought out a Hne of work, 
one that shall arouse the eager interest of his pupils and stimu- 
late them to think for themselves. Such teaching counts. 
It keeps the pupil active in both mind and body. It results 
in thought and a constantly increasing growth of the thinking 
power. It should be the aim of every teacher to lead his 
pupils to think. 



CHAPTER XIX 
THE WILL 

"Will, the Executive. In every human organization where 
conscious life is concerned there must be some kind of execu- 
tive authority. There must be some one whose duty it is to 
see that certain things are done and that certain other things 
are left undone. In the intellectual organization this func- 
tion is performed by the will. The other powers of the mind 
would be useless without this strong directing agency. Per- 
ception and attention would be mere haphazard affairs; 
imagination would run wild ; and thought would be governed 
only by impulse and chance. A man without any will at all 
would be a maniac; he would obey every impulse; he would 
be like an automobile running at full speed without any driver. 

The Natwre of the "Will* If the will were a distinct organ, 
like the heart or the stomach, and if we entered into life with 
this organ large and active or small and sluggish, as chance 
might decree, then would we all be fatalists. We often say, 
"This man has a strong will," or, "This man is sure to fail, 
for he has no will power," just about as we would say, "This 
man can never be an athlete, because he has a clubfoot." 
But the will is not a mere organ; it is not, as some picture it, 
a sort of living creature within us which says "Yes" and "No." 
The will, in a broad and general way, is nothing more than the 
voice of previous experience. It is one of the fundamental 
laws of the intellect that "all manifestations of conscious life 
have an inevitable tendency to express themselves in some 
sort of action." Nothing comes into our consciousness with- 
out arousing an impulse to do something. When we see a 
beautiful object we have an impulse to possess it; when we 
feel a draught of air we have an impulse to shut the door; 
when we hear inspiring music we have an impulse to go out 
and do a noble deed. In the very young child there is nothing 
to control the thousands of spontaneous impulses that arise 
with every hour. The baby finds a red-hot coal and instantly 

122 



THE WILL 123 

seizes it. The next time he sees a coal he has the same desire 
to possess the brilHant thing, but something within him says, 
"No." "The burnt child dreads the fire." He checks the 
impulse with his new-found will. Thus experience builds up 
a system of inhibitions or vetoes. As he grows older the child 
learns to control his impulses more and more, because he learns 
more and more what he may not do. But there is a positive 
side to the matter of will. The child naturally shrinks from 
disagreeable tasks, but he may compel himself to do them 
because he has learned that it pays to do so either in satis- 
faction or bodily comfort or pecuniary result, or something 
else. He may even overrule the veto of sense experience: 
he may, for instance, thrust his hand into the fire to save his 
ball. Thus any addition to one's sense of duty, or love, or 
aspiration, or beauty, or, indeed, any other good thing, is an 
addition by so much to the will power. Create in a child a 
lively sense of duty, and he will drive himself to do very dis- 
agreeable things in order to be true to it. Much of the un- 
pleasant work of the world is done because men have caught 
the true idea of lofty things, and, having it, they must will to 
be true to the heavenly vision. 

Attention and the "Will. We have learned that attention is 
divided into two divisions — voluntary and involuntary, or 
forced and spontaneous. Forced attention, however, is 
simply attention held fixed to one thing for a length of time 
by the exercise of the will. Professor James would include 
most of the functions of the will in the faculty of attention. 
He declares that "the essential achievement of will is to 
attend to a difficult object, and hold it fast before the mind. 
. . . Effort of attention is thus the essential phenomenon of 
will." There must be, perhaps, the further act of carrying 
into effect the proposition which has been held before the 
mind, but, on the whole, the position of Professor James has 
been generally accepted. It follows, then, that all advice 
as to the training of attention is advice as to the training of 
the will. 

Many are feeble in will power simply because they are 
feeble in their powers of attention. Dr. Oppenheim has 
made this very clear: "The criminal knows that his career 
will be short and hard; he knows that the same amount of 



124 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

energy and ability which he uses in his illegitimate pursuits 
could, if rightly directed, make for him a comfortable and 
honorable position in the world. He knows this fully as well 
as you and I, and possibly better. But he cannot keep his 
attention fixed upon the idea ; he is constantly being led astray 
by dancing thoughts of pleasurable excitement, ease, bravado; 
his inhibitions are too few and too weak." This is the testi- 
mony of men who have preached in jails and prisons. Often 
a preacher in such a place has asked all who wish to lead a 
better life to arise, and has been amazed that nearly all arose, 
many of them with eyes streaming with tears. The same 
prisoners, however, if released the next day would go straight 
on in their career of crime. They have never trained their 
will power; it is impossible for them long to hold the image of 
a better life before their attention. 

Will Ct<It«fe. The chief stimulants to the will are pleasure 
and pain. The boy will work unremittingly at his boat under 
the most disagreeable conditions because he has before him a 
vision of the pleasure he is to have from the sailing of it. Am- 
bition will lead a man "to scorn delights and live laborious 
days," for he foresees that the time will come at length when 
he will have the rewards of his labor. Duty, love, religion — 
indeed, all of the calls of the higher life — give visions of pleas- 
ure that make the present suffering appear as nothing. There 
are lower incentives. A man may work for mere money; a 
student may work only for the prize. Under the second head 
one may drive himself to do disagreeable things on account of 
fear of consequences. Many a boy works when he would 
rather play simply because he has before him a vision of his 
father's wrath if he neglects the task. These being the stimu- 
lants, it is easy to deduce the general principles of will culture. 
Supply the proper motive. The prompt doing of unpleasant 
things when reason shows that they are right will, if persisted 
in, create at length a habit which will anchor the life securely 
to safe foundations. Children should not be allowed to pro- 
crastinate when once it has been made clear to them that the 
deed is necessary. They should be taught not to shrink from 
disagreeable things simply because they are disagreeable. 
It should, however, be made perfectly clear to them that the 
reward for their effort is adequate and reasonable, and that it 



THE WILL 125 

is one that is worthy of their highest endeavor. No base 
motives should be appealed to, and no mere fear of ptinish- 
ment should be used as the incentive to effort. 

The Use of Prizes. Should rewards be given to stimulate 
the will? Should the mind be led to study by a system of 
pleasant attractions of a mere material nature? There are 
many who are doubtful of the expediency of giving prizes 
even in the secular schools. Says Colonel Parker: "Bought 
at home, bought at school, with merits, percentages, and 
prizes, bought in college and university by the offer of high 
places, the young man with a finished education stands in the 
world's market place and cries, 'I'm for sale; what will you 
give for me?' . . . Prize-giving is the rewarding of an ances- 
tor; rewarding a child for the virtues and mental power of his 
great-great-grandfather." But there is no question as to 
whether prizes and merits should be given in the Sunday school. 
Here, indeed, they are entirely out of place. They put the 
emphasis upon the wrong motive. They appeal to selfishness 
and cupidity and egotism. The Sunday school is of all places 
the training ground of the higher motives; it is the place 
where unselfishness, generosity, and lofty ideals of all kinds 
are continually to be held before the eyes of learners. To 
stimulate giving by creating rivalry between classes, to urge 
to hard study by offering a prize for the most Bible texts com- 
mitted to memory, or, indeed, to bid for excellence in any- 
thing through an appeal to mere selfishness, is not the prov- 
ince of the Sunday school. There are enough stimulants to 
the will without appealing to the lower passions and ideals. 

"Will Breaking. Then there is the training of the stubborn 
variety of will. It was one of the theories of the older school 
of moralists that the child's will should be "broken," cost 
what the effort might. "Break your child's will, in order that 
it may not perish," said a saintly old divine. "Break its will 
as soon as it can speak plainly, or even before it can speak 
at all. It should be forced to do as it is told, even if you have 
to whip it ten times running. Break its will, in order that its 
soul may live." Modern educators, however, denounce such 
will-breaking. It is better to lead than to drive; it is better 
to train the will than to destroy it. "The will," cries Dr. 
Forbush, "shall we pull it up and throw it away? What,' 



126 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

and leave him a weakling child through life? Shall we bind 
it down? What! and maim him forever? Let it grow, but 
let it grow properly. This will is dangerous, but needful. 
You can't have births without some risks. If this boy is ever 
to be a man, it will depend upon what is done with his will. " 
It is not easy to be patient and loving and wise with stubborn 
children, but it is comparatively easy to bluster and threaten 
and punish. He, indeed, is a poor parent who takes the 
easier way. And as to actual stubbornness — there are chil- 
dren, and many of them, who have wills like balky horses. 
They are abnormal, and it is really impossible for them to be 
otherwise without the most careful training. Many a parent 
and many a teacher has found a child that would not yield, do 
with it what he might. Says Professor James: 

"When a situation of the kind is once fairly developed, and 
the child is all tense and excited inwardly, nineteen times out 
of twenty it is best for the teacher to apperceive the case as 
one of neural pathology rather than one of moral culpability. 
So long as the inhibiting sense of impossibility remains in the 
child's mind, he will continue to get beyond the obstacle. 
The aim of the teacher should, then, be to make him simply 
forget. Drop the subject for the time, divert the mind to some- 
thing else; then, leading the pupil back by some circuitous 
line of association, spring it upon him again before he has time 
to recognze it, and as likely as not he will go over it now with- 
out any difficulty. It is in no other way that we overcome 
balkiness in a horse : we divert his attention, do something to 
his nose or ear, lead him around in a circle, and thus get him 
over a place where flogging would only have made him more 
invincible. A tactful teacher will never let these strained 
situations come up at all."^ 

Ptinishment. Shall punishment of any kind be used to 
stimulate the will ? In the Sunday school only with great tact 
and care. "The ties which hold a boy or girl to a Sunday 
school," declare Burton and Mathews, "are so voluntary and 
weak, as compared with the compulsion which keeps pupils 
in the public school, that any large or general appeal to fear 
is likely to drive the pupil from the class altogether. Above 



I Talks to Teachers. 



THE WILL 127 

all, scolding is the most successful means yet invented of 
depopulating a Sunday school class." The teacher has 
always the appeal to duty, to interest, to fair play, to love, 
to make use of, and the lesson may be made so interesting 
that there will be no need for discipline. Order is not neces- 
sarily perfect stillness ; it is interest in the work at hand ; it 
is attention not won through fear of punishment or hope of 
reward, but spontaneous and joyous and natural, A true 
teacher can lead the wills of his pupils anywhere he pleases', 
he who bullies and drives and scolds is unfit to be a teacher. 
The Will and Character. A cultivated will is only another 
name for a strong character. "Stability is founded upon 
will." To be honest, to be punctual, to be diligent, to be 
truthful — these are at first largely matters of will, and they 
are to be learned in the plastic years of youth. "The educa- 
tion of the will," says Taylor, "the development of control in 
its many-sided senses, is the real end and aim of all education. 
The will of the child may be influenced in a purely infectious 
way or by intelligent counsel and assistance. It cannot be 
accomplished by a few spasmodic efforts from time to time» 
but only by that slow and regular process by which nature 
produces all of her rarest creations." But our willing hardens 
swiftly into habit. The thing that once took all the deter- 
mination we possessed becomes in due time an automatic 
process of which we are scarcely conscious. It was so with 
our learning to read and write and play the piano. It took 
persistence and long-continued practice to ride the bicycle, 
but at length riding became as easy as walking. Every 
movement of our muscles is either automatic or voluntary, 
and the automatic part increases in amount as we grow older. 
Culture, training, skill, dexterity, and the like are only differ- 
ent names for will power exerted in one direction until a habit 
has been formed. Our lives are but the sum total of our past 
willing. We are "bundles of habits" which we have formed 
ourselves by our past volition. And this brings us to our 
next lesson. 



CHAPTER XX 
HABIT 

The Law of Habit. Habit is "the tendency of a thing to be 
or to do what it was or did on some previous occasion." A 
stream of water descends upon a newly plowed meadow; in 
running off it takes the course of least resistance and cuts for 
itself a channel. Henceforth every stream of water that 
comes upon this meadow will run away in this channel, which 
will ever grow deeper and deeper. It is a law written over all 
nature that action when repeated shall follow, if possible, 
already established paths. Habit is only a synonym of 
repetition. The little child is almost powerless in every re- 
spect. He cannot even direct his hands or his eyes. It is 
only through painful effort many times repeated that he 
learns to grasp the near object, and later to walk, and to use 
the various implements and objects which enter his life. At 
first every act must be the result of careful attention, but soon 
repetition of the act establishes, as it were, a channel, and at 
length the stream of action follows this channel without any 
effort of the attention. The action becomes automatic. 
The small boy walks and runs without a thought of what he is 
doing; he balances and turns and swings himself about with 
the utmost skill without paying the slightest attention to the 
act. It has become a spontaneous matter. So with every 
act of our muscles and of our minds; at first there must be 
painful attention, then, after repetition again and again, auto- 
matic action. Habit is past attention. "Ninety-nine one- 
hundredths," says Powell, "of all a man does he does auto- 
matically," and Professor James would multiply this number 
by ten. And automatic action, with the exception of some 
instinctive reactions (instinct is born with the individual; 
habit is acquired, inherited from ancestors perhaps), is only 
another name for repeated acts or states. 

Habit Not an Evit. With many the word "habit" has an 
evil meaning. To say that a man is a "slave of habit" is 

128 



HABIT 129 

to suggest that he is dominated by his lower impulses. But 
we are all slaves of habit, and were we not, w^e would be mere 
infants in attainment. All training and education is nothing 
more or less than the systematic forming of habits. Take, as 
an example, learning to play the piano: the child with his 
clumsy little fingers plays over and over the difficult scales 
until by constant repetition the act becomes a habit; until 
later, after he has practiced for years, he plays almost auto- 
matically; he can run his fingers over the keys with exquisite 
skill and talk to you at the same time. Walking, talking, 
reading — skill, indeed, in any direction-^-are all habits which 
can be acquired only by repetition with much expenditure 
at first of attention held firmly in place by will. The degree of 
one's culture is simply the degree to which he has made his 
life automatic. The most trained, skilled, cultured, educated, 
well-bred, strong-charactered man is the man who has the 
greatest variety and the strongest assortment of good habits. 
Habit, therefore, should not have solely a bad implication; 
it is one of the most valuable processes connected with human 
life. 

Childhood and Habit. The body of a young child — its 
nerves and tissue and brain — has been likened to wet plaster 
of Paris. Every experience of waking hours makes its groove 
in the plastic material. The first delicate tracing is deepened 
with the repetition of the act, until swiftly it becomes a rut. 
Paper folded once always folds thereafter in the same groove, 
and so with the plastic mind of childhood. In the first five 
or six years the child has become to a large degree what he is 
to be. The plaster begins to harden, and by middle age it has 
set forever, a fact which places fearful responsibilities upon 
everyone who comes into contact with childhood. It is as 
if we lived our lives surrounded on every side by sensitive 
phonograph plates on which our every word and act must 
sink and be treasured for us or against us for eternity. The 
chief responsibility is, beyond all argument, upon the home; 
the child is there more than anywhere else. Suppose the 
father swears, or is indecent in language, or smokes, or lies, 
or drinks; suppose the mother loses her temper, or says un- 
kindly things, or judges harshly her neighbors! If they 
realized completely what first trails they were plowing in the 



I30 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

sensitive material of their children's minds, they would pause 
in very horror. "Habit" comes from the Latin verb habeo — 
"I have it"; swiftly it changes to the third person, hahet — 
"It has me." 

Bad Habits. The real problem connected with habit is the 
seeing to it that the habits are of the right kind. Habits 
there must be, but what kind of habits? The answer to the 
question determines what the life is to be. After all, we are 
to-day simply the sum of our yesterdays. "In every act of 
our lives, no matter how trivial, we are laying the foundation 
of all our future conduct." "As the twig is bent the tree 
inclines." A rich philanthropist, struck by the misery and 
squalor of the slums of a certain city, invited some of the most 
wretched in one of the worst sections to move at his expense 
into a cleanly and respectable part of the suburbs, but not 
one availed himself of the opportunity. They preferred to 
stay where they were, where the habits of a lifetime had fixed 
them. Habit is second nature; and if the habit is bad, then 
badness becomes second nature. The older one is the harder 
is it to change. The best work is that done with childhood. 

Habit and Edtfcation. No other chapter in psychology is 
more suggestive and helpful to the teacher than this. The 
teacher has as almost his sole business the forming of correct 
habits. Education is habit-making. Training, drill work, 
everything connected with the teacher's profession, has as its 
end proper habits. The teacher should live with that ideal ever 
before him. His office is not to amuse, not to pack into the 
pupil's brain stores of facts, not to lecture and pour in, not 
to be a police officer and keep order, not to be a convenient 
reference authority in time of difficulty : he is to be a molder 
of correct habits; he should show the pupil how to think, how 
to act, how to feel, how to help himself. If he has his pupils 
an hour, then that hour is to be made a sample of what the 
ideal life should be. It should, as it were, form grooves in the 
learner's mind so that he will be impelled to make all of his 
hours conform to this standard hour. 

In the Sunday School* But the Sunday school teacher 
labors under great difficulties. He has his pupils only an 
hour in the week, and during all of the other one hundred and 
sixty-seven hours some one else has them — the home, the 



HABIT 131 

street, the public school. To make a perfect impression upon 
his children he should have them constantly under his direc- 
tion ; he should have control over every avenue through which 
bad habits might come. As it is, his chance is as one to one 
hundred and sixty-seven. The chief burden is upon the 
home, but unfortunately there are thousands and hundreds of 
thousands of homes where the responsibility is not in any real 
measure felt. What can he do? An hour a week is better 
than nothing. In the fifty-two hours of a year one can make 
impressions on the plastic young soul which can never be 
effaced, impressions which may indeed control the life. The 
Sunday school teacher should strive, if possible, to come in 
contact with the pupil during the week, as often indeed as he 
can. He should see to it that no opportunity is wasted. 
There are many habits that may be inculcated even in one hour 
a week. There is the habit of punctuality. An experienced 
old teacher once declared to me that an eleventh command- 
ment should be added to the Decalogue : Thou shalt not come 
late to the house of God. There are other habits. "Possibly 
one of the finest is the habit of thoroughness, that faculty of 
doing a thing, no matter what its nature may be, in a complete 
and conscientious manner." Then there is the habit of 
truthfulness. Reverence for God's house, honesty, courtesy^ 
obedience, regularity, order, unselfishness — all these may be 
cultivated into habits, and it is the teacher's duty to watch 
every member of his class with loving care in order to incul- 
cate and direct these great principles. 

The Breaking of Bad Habits* In only one way can a habit 
be eradicated — by making a deeper channel alongside of it. 
He who would rid himself of a habit must concentrate himself 
so strongly upon the new habit to be formed that it will banish 
the old idea. The new action must be repeated as often as 
possible, that the channel may deepen. There is no such 
thing as breaking a habit by "tapering off," as it is called. 
There must be an absolute break, and then concentration with 
all of one's powers upon the new course. The teacher who 
would break her students of bad habits cannot do it by the 
mere use of maxims. "Honesty is the best policy" never led 
anybody to an upright life. It must be brought home per- 
sonally to the learner; appeal must be made to self-respect. 



132 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

and duty, and unselfishness; examples of upright men should 
be shown, and there can be no ceasing in the work. The more 
concrete the teaching the better. To trust a boy in some ac- 
tual transaction is worth more than a volume of mere precept. 
The Acquisition of Good Habits. Professor James, who has 
written more helpfully upon habit than anyone else I have 
ever read, has said that "the great thing in all education is to 
make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. , . . 
We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, 
as many useful actions as we can." For the training of one- 
self into correct habits he has laid down several maxims. 
First, " We must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and 
decided an initiative as possible." We should see to it that we 
keep ourselves in the right path. A public pledge is often of 
help; joining the church has given stability to many a waver- 
ing Christian. A certain man once advertised that he would 
give a hundred dollars to the man who found him in any 
saloon. It strengthened him. Put good incentives ever in 
your own way; surround yourself with those things which 
build up. Second, ''Never suffer an exception to occur till the 
new habit is securely rooted in yotir life." Third, ''Seize the 
first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, 
and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the 
direction of the habits you aspire to gain.'' At a concert where 
a great singer is appealing to the emotions, at church under 
strong preaching, or even at home while reading a good book 
we often have strong impulses to do better and higher things. 
If we do not act upon these impulses, they leave us poorer 
than we were before. Professor James would have us do 
something, if it be nothing more than to speak a kind word to 
the first soul we meet, or to double the amount we usually 
place in the collection. If we do not, we become at last like 
the Russian lady who went to the playhouse and sat and wept 
■for hours over the sufferings of the' heroine while her own 
coachman was freezing to death outside. "There is no more 
contemptible type of human character than that of the nerve- 
less sentimentalist and dreamer who spends his life in a welter- 
ing sea of sensibility, but never does a concrete, manly deed." 
Fourth, "Dont preach too much to your pupils, or abound in 
good talk in the abstract." Finally, " Keep the faculty of effort 



HABIT 133 

alive within you by a little gratuitous exercise every day." When 
misfortune or suffering or temptation comes we have only our 
past accumulation of will and resolution to fall back upon. 
The strength of the oak is just in proportion to the storms it 
has wrestled with continually during the years of its past. 
The tree that has never exercised itself goes down before the 
storm. 

Self- Activity* Finally, habit comes only through the active 
exertion of our own selves. No one can talk habits into us; 
the teacher who simply talks will inculcate little of habit in her 
pupils. There must be action on the part of the learner. To 
learn arithmetic, or the piano, or skating, or composition 
there must be a continual doing on the part of the one who is 
to learn. Thus the problem before the Sunday school teacher 
is an intensely practical one. Her class must be, as it were, 
a seminary where the active virtues are practiced actively. 
Manifestly, the teacher cannot say, "During this hour we are 
all going to be honest, so as to learn how to do it." The 
problem is more like that of the football coach who takes his 
men in after the practice game and discusses with a diagram 
the rules and the points of failure and success. The teacher 
must constantly be in the presence of the pupil's daily life 
and problems and must make applications. If the class is 
organized as a boys' club with midweek meetings, a thousand 
lessons of a practical nature may be taught actively: fairness, 
courtesy, obedience, self-control, and the like; and these may 
be repeated until they form the beginnings of real habits that 
will at length dominate the life. One cannot, be specific. In 
work like this the teacher must make his own plans. We can 
only state the great principles and leave the individual worker 
to make his applications in view of his conditions and the 
material with which he is to work. One cannot learn to 
teach by memorizing rules; one cannot make formulas that 
shall do automatically the work of a teacher. 



CHAPTER XXI 

SUGGESTION AND IMITATION 

Suggestion, By this time it must be clear that no single 
function of the intellect, like perception or attention or imagi- 
nation or memory, exists alone as if it were a separate organ. 
Each is a composite made up of many parts; each borrows 
from the others and lends to the others; all are working at 
the same instant. The mind is a unit and it works as a unit. 
We dissect it and name different functions, but this is only for 
convenience. The more we know of the mind the harder it is 
to divide it up into parts and organs and processes. We 
speak of perception, for instance, and define it as the power 
which interprets the materials given by sensation. We would 
thus imply that our intellects are stored only with material 
that has come in through the senses by means of perception. 
But "half of what we hear and see never comes in through the 
senses at all," The child excitedly tells its mother that he 
has seen a snake as long as the table. Investigation shows 
that it was a dark rope coiled in the grass. A picture of fierce 
spectacles and teeth rampant brings up instantly the image 
of a certain strenuous individual. I haven't mentioned his 
name, but you have it none the less. Your hostess makes a 
perfectly innocent remark about her work to-morrow, and 
you depart very soon afterward, remarking to yourself, "I 
was boring her; she hinted that it was time to go home." 
We do not need the whole sensation; we get a fragment and 
we infer the rest. Given a bit of arc, we have the circle. The 
mind leaps swiftly ahead of the slow movement of data coming 
in from perception and completes the picture from the first 
details, just as Poe forecast the whole plot of Barnaby Rudge 
after reading the first installment. This is suggestion. It 
runs through all of the functions of the mind: association, 
attention, imagination, and the rest. Says Baldwin : "By the 
suggestion we mean the fact that all sorts of hints from without 
disturb and modify the beliefs and actions of the individual." 

134 



SUGGESTION AND IMITATION 135 

S«ggestibility» Some minds are more open to suggestion 
than others. Certain sensitive persons are always looking 
for hints, "Where more is meant than meets the ear." 
They watch nan'owly the expression upon the face of the 
talker that they may find what really is in his heart. Say to 
certain people, "Do you see yonder cloud, that's almost in 
shape of a camel?" and they reply instantly, "By the mass, 
and 'tis like a camel indeed." Say to them, " It's a good day 
for fishing," and they are ready to go with you at once. We 
are all of us influenced more than we realize by chance sug- 
gestions thrown suddenly into our lives. The whole career 
of a young man in college has often been turned by some 
remark from his professor like, "I believe you have gifts that 
would give you success in the law," John B. Gough was 
saved because some one once said to him, "You can be a man 
yet." A man fleeing before a mob suddenly turns and says, 
"You wouldn't hang me, would you?" The mob had not 
previously thought of it, but now they can think of nothing 
else. An inventor gets the crowning process of his invention 
while listening to a sermon on "predestination." A poet of 
my acquaintance got the theme of one of his best poems 
through the misreading of a line in a newspaper. Suggestions 
are pouring in upon us every moment; some people are more 
suggestible than others, but all are turned hither and thither 
by these chance straws. 

The Dangers of Suggestion* Let the newspapers tell in 
detail of some suicide committed in an unusual manner and 
there will be a number of others just like it within a week. 
Reading about crimes produces a tendency toward crime. 
The "Raffles" stories have been responsible for more law- 
breaking than most people suspect. Many a child never 
thought of certain kinds of mischief until his parent warned 
him against them, A certain mother had occasion to leave 
her small children alone for several hours. She warned them 
against everything she could think of. Finally as she was 
leaving she said, "Now don't you put any beans in your ears." 
When she returned every child had a bean in its ear. This is 
the weak point of advice. Many an old Polonius of a father 
has followed his son on his way to college with a stream of 
advice. He has warned specifically against every evil he 



136 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

could imagine, and in doing so has really suggested forms of 
evil to the son. "Don't go in swimming to-day," cautions the 
mother. The boy hadn't thought of it before; but now his 
day is filled with an irresistible desire to go into the water. 
A certain father once said to his son, "You say you are going 
to be a journalist, but I'll wager you'll end by being simply a 
guide with John Davis up in the Maine woods." With that 
moment came the impulse in the boy to. be a guide, an impulse 
that he had not definitely formulated before, and as he always 
had been a great reader of hunting and trapping stories he had 
to fight it for some years. There is a danger connected with 
the teaching of temperance in the Sunday school. A boy 
once told one of my teachers that after a temperance lesson 
where the sparkle and glitter of the wine had been dwelt upon, 
and its effects upon the human system, he often had an im- 
pulse to rush out and drink some wine to find how it tasted and 
felt. The best temperance teaching dwells upon the lives of 
temperate men. Hold up before the class the ideal temperate 
man rather than the drunkard. 

Teaching by S«ggestion. There are two ways of getting a 
thing done : use either persuasion or suggestion. Of the first 
we will not treat; of suggestion there are many uses. "Every 
teacher," says Oppenheim, "uses it, in proportion to his skill, 
when he tries to lead his pupils instead of driving them. 
Every time he begins the explanation of a difficult problem 
by saying that it is easy, that it has a bad but undeserved 
reputation, that a very little thought will make the whole 
matter clear, he is using suggestion and at the same time is 
skillftdly leading his pupils over a rough road." The teacher 
may drop hints as to behavior or as to future work; he may 
skillfully suggest certain ideals and standards; he may inten- 
tionally, while not seeming to do so, express his opinion of 
certain acts and principles. If certain suggestions in the form 
of prohibitions are like bad seeds in the minds of children, 
then certain other suggestions must act as good seeds. Every 
thing should be examined not wholly as to what it is on the 
face of it, but as to what it suggests. For instance, a draped 
feminine statue may be more injurious than one perfectly 
nude. There is nothing more harmful than suggested vice. 

Imitation. Imitation is but a special form of suggestion. 



SUGGESTION AND IMITATION 137 

Seeing others do a thing suggests unconsciously to us, perhaps, 
that we do the same thing. We involuntarily fall into the 
ways of those around us. We make a wry face when we see 
another eating a lemon. We see the people on the street 
looking up at a housetop and before we know it we are doing 
the same thing. Enterprising advertisers have taken advan- 
tage of this. They have hired men to stand all day and look 
absorbedly in at their show windows or up at their signs. 
When the crowd rushes madly down the street we have an 
impulse to follow. Suggestion and imitation are the basis 
of all mob action. In the schoolroom imitation plays a large 
part. Let one pupil ask for a drink of water and it suggests 
thirst to all the others. Let one yawn and all will yawn. 
A child with Saint Vitus' s dance has infected a whole school 
with nervous reactions. The uses of imitation with children 
have already been dwelt upon in the section devoted to child 
study. The teacher should realize fully that he is the pupil's 
first lesson; his ways, his peculiarities, his methods of work 
will be imitated more or less by all before him. 

Books and Reading. The Sunday school should use every 
effort to carry on a crusade for proper reading in the home. 
There is no form of suggestion more insidious than that which 
comes from books. Many a life has been turned by its read- 
ing. The boy who reads the cheap novel has suggested to 
him an environment which makes him discontented with his 
present humdrum lot. He is led sometimes even into crime. 
The girl has suggested to her a world which is false in every 
particular. She becomes as a result romantic, a dreamer and 
a castle builder. From suggestion it is but a step to imitation. 
The Sunday school library should be one of the most thoroughly 
alive parts of the organization. It should not be enough 
that the pupils have a chance to take books if they will. The 
teacher should discuss books with the class, should form read- 
ing lists, and have, if possible, a reading circle. Control com- 
pletely the reading of a boy or girl and you have gained a hold 
that could be gained in no other way. For the Sunday school 
the really practical part of the subject of suggestion and imita- 
tion concerns itself with the subject of books and reading. 



CHAPTER XXII 
THE EMOTIONS 

Sensation and Feeling. The psychologist makes a dis- 
tinction between sensation and feeling. Sensation comes to 
our consciousness through one of the sense organs of the body. 
It conies from without, and fixes our attention upon some- 
thing outside of ourselves. It is thus objective in its effect. 
Feeling, however, is from within. When the sensation reaches 
consciousness it arouses feeling. The eye brings the sensa- 
tion of redness and of form, and perception says: "This is a 
red cloud." The red, we say, is in the cloud. The sight, 
however, gives us pleasure, but this pleasure is a subjective 
affair ; it is within us. It is easy to realize the difference be- 
tween sensation and feeling, for there is no one who cannot 
feel the difference between the pain from a burn and the pain 
at hearing the news of the death of a friend. Many sensations 
may come to us at the same instant. A great conflagration 
may fill the whole surroundings with a deafening roar, a 
blinding glare, and a choking odor. There can, however, 
be but one feeling at one time. The frame of mind must 
be either pleasant or unpleasant. The feeling of the mo- 
ment dominates the whole consciousness. To the dys- 
peptic the whole world is blue and everything is going to 
ruin. To the healthy man a good dinner brightens the 
whole horizon. 

Emotion. An emotion is more complex than a feeling, and 
it is stronger. A single perception may result in a feeling, as, 
for instance, the warmth of the fire may give the feeling of 
comfort, the filing of a saw the feeling of discomfort, the play- 
ing of soft music the feeling of peace. For emotion, however, 
there must be a group of perceptions or ideas. One finds in 
his walk a tiny necklace, and he has at first a feeling of curi- 
osity or of pleasure ; but if on closer inspection he finds it to 
be the necklace lost by his little girl who has since died, the 

138 



THE EMOTIONS 139 

feeling will swiftly change into emotion. The feelings and 
emotions and sentiments belong in a different class from any- 
thing we have thus far investigated. Perceptions and judg- 
ments and images belong to the life of thought; they are 
movements of the intellect grappling with the external world 
about it. Feelings and emotions are subjective and personal. 
They come upon us suddenly, and master us. Sometimes 
they dominate us completely, to the exclusion of everything 
else. The insane often illustrate what the extreme of emo- 
tional life would be. Now they laugh uproariously, now they 
flame into volcanic anger, now they burst into tempestuous 
weeping. All of us are subject more or less to the power of 
emotion. Some of us are dominated by anger or by jealousy 
or by melancholy or pride. They are besetting sins, and 
unchecked they become moods ("A mood is an emotion long 
drawn out"), and at length take possession of the life. 

Instincts* Feelings and emotions are very closely con- 
nected with the instincts. Instinct may be defined as "the 
faculty of acting in such a way as to produce certain ends, 
without foresight of the ends, and without previous education 
in the performance." Birds build their nests precisely as all 
their species have built them from the beginning, and that 
without the slightest instruction. The young child is a bundle 
of instincts. He eats, plays, laughs, cries, stands, walks in- 
stinctively. And with every instinct there goes an emotional 
excitement. The child reaches instinctively for the bright 
object, and if he cannot get it, he cries, then kicks, then 
screams in rage. "Every object that excites an instinct 
excites an emotion as well." Among the instincts may be 
mentioned play, imitation, rivalry, pugnacity, sympathy, 
fear, fear of high places and black things, curiosity, and the 
like, but from instincts they quickly change to habits. Says 
Professor James: "Most instincts are implanted for the sake 
of giving rise to habits, and, this purpose once accomplished, 
the instincts themselves, as such, have no raison d'etre in the 
physical economy, and consequently fade away." A child 
left to do as it pleases becomes speedily a creature of intense 
emotions. He is selfish; he screams and falls into a fury 
when his will is crossed. Many a parent has laughed at the 
willfulness of the baby, or at the first little lie, or at the first 



I40 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

symptom of pugnacity, and has awakened later to find that 
the baby has grown into a boy who is emotionally on a level 
with the savage. It should be recognized as the duty of every 
parent and teacher to see to it that the instincts of the child 
and their emotional accompaniments are trained into the 
proper channels. The moral training of children consists 
largely in the control and direction of their instincts so that 
they will harden into the proper habits. 

The Expression of Emotion. Every emotion is expressed 
in some attitude or motion of the body. It is not hard to tell 
when a man is angry or joyous or melancholy or disappointed. 
The emotion is written all over him. It is safe to say that 
emotion entirely without some physical manifestation is 
impossible. This fact has been made much of by psycholo- 
gists. One school maintains that the emotion comes because 
of the bodily expression. Instead of saying, "We lose our 
fortune, are sorry and weep; we are insulted by a rival, are 
angry and strike; we meet a bear, are frightened and run, 
. . . the more rational statement is that we feel sorry because 
we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble." 
There is much to commend this theory. One could not re- 
main angry long if he were lying fiat on his back on the floor, 
his arms stretched out. The more the angry man flourishes 
his fists and roars his threats and gnashes his teeth, the angrier 
he gets. "Imagine, if you can, Uriah Heep with a broad, 
expanded chest." "In Leonardo da Vinci's great picture of 
the Last Supper, the character of each of the disciples is plainly 
shown by the hands." Emotion can thus be painted on 
canvas. One cannot remain melancholy long if he stands 
erect, throws back his shoulders, and looks at the sky. To 
bow oneself over with the face in the hands will make anyone 
melancholy. Dr. Oppenheim observes how people sometimes 
go to funerals merely out of sense of duty or respect to some of 
the mourners. They have no feeling of sorrow when they 
enter the house, "but as the service progresses, and they see 
the unhappiness of the true mourners, they feel bound to 
show sympathy. They assume the attitude and the expression 
of sorrow; they cast down their eyes, pull down the corners 
of their mouths, let their shoulders droop. The women, in 
the same fashion of sympathy, put their handkerchiefs to 



THE EMOTIONS 141 

their eyes; and before long all of them feel thoroughly un- 
happy and sorrow-stricken." 

The Coltwrc of the Emotions. And it is right here that the 
Sunday school teacher may find a most helpful suggestion, 
one that will give real life to his work before his class : he is to 
create in himself the emotions he wishes to find in his class, 
and he is to see to it that all his pupils are in the right bodily 
condition for receptiveness. If he has come to school on Sun- 
day morning feeling dispirited, impatient, nervous, it will 
never do for him to go before his class in such a condition. 
Nothing in the world is more contagious than emotion. Many 
a teacher has gone home and complained that the class was 
more restless and mischievous and obstinate than he had ever 
known before, and has thereby simply confessed that he was 
in no condition that morning to teach. He should with all his 
will power have put on the bodily expression of joyousness and 
serenity and cheerfulness and mastery. Turn the corners of 
the mouth up rather than down, change the scowl into a 
smile, stand erect instead of bending into a melancholy curve, 
turn your thoughts from your ailments into pleasant channels, 
see to it that all in the room do likewise, and in a few moments 
the whole horizon will brighten. 

The teacher should preach this gospel to his pupils, and, 
while they are in his presence at least, he should see to it that 
they practice it. In church and Sunday school pupils should 
be required to be reverent in attitude ; they should bow the 
head while prayer is offered and should close the eyes, and 
they should be taught always to act in the church as if it were 
a holy place. They should constantly be impressed with the 
fact that the only life worth living is the cheerful life, that it is 
positively wicked'' to be pessimistic or miserable or angry or 
jealous, and that he who goes about scattering these emotions 
is as bad as he who goes about scattering the germs of disease. 
One should school himself always to be cheerful and sunny, 
always to say pleasant things of neighbors and friends, and 
alw'ays to look on the bright side. To do this is an art, but it 
is an art that everyone can acquire if he will. 

The Law of Habit rules here as elsewhere, but it seems as 
if the emotions were peculiarly responsive to the law. If one 
gives way to anger once, he will give way more easily and 



142 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

more violently on the next occasion. If one begins to worry, 
the miserable habit will increase with geometric strides. One 
swiftly becomes a slave to unchecked emotions. Indecision, 
timidity, pride, envy, anger, jealousy, sensitiveness, impa- 
tience, distrust — all of these grow by exercise until they domi- 
nate the life. One can easily fancy that he has received a 
slight or an injury, and by dwelling upon it and drawing upon 
the memory for previous experiences with the person con- 
cerned, and by gathering together all the disagreeable things 
that can be recollected, can lash himself into anger and even 
rage and hatred. One should discipline himself to throw 
away the materials for such emotions ; he should fix his atten- 
tion on the good side of the person's character, and construe 
always in favor of the one under suspicion. As evil emotions 
grow by what they feed upon, so do good emotions. 

Emotionality. Every teacher will find in the class two 
types of pupil : the logical and reasoning type and the impul- 
sive and emotional. The one is cold and undemonstrative; 
the other is effusive and liable to be ruled by the impulse of the 
moment. The over-emotional type is one of weakness. The 
sensibilities lie on the surface, and there is apt to be no depth 
of life. Such persons are much in evidence during revivals, 
but they quickly "back-slide" ; they cry over tales of distress, 
but they seldom are found among the workers who bring 
relief; they feel, but they do not act. The teacher's duty 
here is to repress the emotions and to direct them along lines 
of actual accomplishment. The books and the reading of 
such pupils should be carefully selected; and their habits of 
life should be watched with diligence. There are too many 
who are merely sentimental and mawkish in their religious 
life, and it is so chiefly because the emotions have been allowed 
to run wild. 

The "Work with Children* The normal child is cheerful. 
He comes "with smiling morning face" to school, and if he 
does not, something is wrong. He may be sick, or there may 
be other abnormal conditions to account for the lack of cheer- 
fulness; but whatever it may be, there can be no effective 
work on the child's part until the cause is removed. The 
teacher may by her own cheerfulness remove the burden, or 
she may induce the child to forget his trouble, and if she sue- 



THE EMOTIONS 143 

ceeds, she has administered a medicine better than any doctor 
could give. "Anxiety and indifference are more frequently 
attributable to mental than to physical causes." There are 
many emotions that the teacher may appeal to with certainty. 
Surprise is always effective. Vary the program; lay aside 
the text-book often, and give something new. Arouse ex- 
pectation. Send the class home speculating as to what is 
coming next. There should be, however, nothing sensational 
or grotesque. Common sense should reign here as everywhere 
else. Hope may also be appealed to, and admiration. Fear 
should be avoided utterly, though shame may often be used 
with advantage. Sometimes a boy may be made ashamed at 
being rude or tardy or unprepared in his work. Mrs. Harrison 
tells how she once punished an obstinate boy by saying, "Well, 
children, we shall have to give up this nice exercise because 
Charley has spoiled it for us." All eyes were then turned 
reproachfully upon Charley, and his punishment seemed 
greater than he could bear. The sense of humor should not 
be overlooked. Many Sunday school teachers frown upon 
anything that in the least tends to create a smile while the 
Bible is being studied, but this is against all pedagogic and 
even spiritual law. There are times when a good, honest 
laugh is the most useful thing that the teacher can bring to his 
class. Children have a keen appreciation of humor, and it 
should be cultivated. The sense of humor is the regulator of 
life; indeed, it may be called the safety valve. Many a 
puritanical old Sunday school teacher has seen his class gradu- 
ally fade away because he was utterly destitute of the sense 
of humor. Too much cannot be said about the culture of the 
emotions. We too often think that if we train the intellect 
we have done all that is needful. It is even more necessary 
that we train those volcanic forces that arise so easily, that 
scatter such destruction at times, and that increase in force 
with such fearful rapidity. Many a life has been ruined be- 
cause the emotions were neglected in youth. The greater 
percentage of crime is committed in moments of excitement 
or depression or emotional tension, and all of this crime is 
simply the result of early emotion allowed to run wild. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
MORALITY AND RELIGION 

The Sentiments. When the emotions are directed by 
judgment and reason we have as a result sentiment, which, 
taken in its psychological sense, is the highest product that 
the human intellect may evolve. Sentiment may be defined 
as "that form of feeling in which the soul responds to the good 
as it comes to man directly through his rational nature." It is 
rational emotion. The simple emotions, like anger or jealousy 
or sorrow or remorse, are irrational; they come upon us 
suddenly and master us; we are in a way passive and they 
active. The higher emotions or sentiments are controlled and 
modified and elaborated by the power of the intellect ; they are 
passive, as it were, and we active. These sentiments are 
generally divided into four classes : the intellectual sentiments 
which include all of those sciences which rest on the question, 
"Here is a theory: is it true or untrue?"; the aesthetic senti- 
ments, which have to do with beauty in its various forms — 
architecture, sculpture, painting, rhythm, melody, and the 
like; the moral and social sentiments, which deal with the 
relation of man to man in society; and the religious sentiments, 
which deal with the relations of man to God. This last is the 
supreme achievement of the human soul. 

The .Esthetic. Of the purely intellectual sentiments we 
shall say nothing. The aesthetic sentiments, however, must 
not be passed over by the Sunday school teacher. It should 
be a part of the work of the church to train the sense of beauty 
and to give correct aesthetic taste. There should be in the 
Sunday school good pictures, good literature, and good music; 
nothing less than the best should be tolerated. Ruskin once 
observed "that religious people as a rule care little for pictures, 
and that when they do care for them they generally prefer the 
worst ones to the best." If this charge be true, it is because 
the church has not taught the appreciation of art. In the'se 
days of postcard reproductions of all the great masterpieces 

144 



MORALITY AND RELIGION 145 

almost in the original colors, of Perry pictures, and Tissot 
prints, and admirable card series made especially for Sunday 
school work, there is no excuse for ignorance of the best in 
religious art. Then there is the domain of music. America is 
peculiarly unfortunate in respect to its Sunday school songs. 
The thousands of Christmas and Easter andChildren's Day pro- 
grams ground out by sheer force simply to sell, the hundreds 
of Sunday school song books issued merely for the money to be 
made, furnish, indeed, food for pessimism. The most impor- 
tant thing about a song is the poetry, for singing, after all, is 
but another way of saying words, yet many care only for the 
lilt and the jig of the music. There are songs sung in some of 
our schools the words of which are mere twaddle from bbth the 
poetic and the religious standpoints. Happy the school that 
has a sensible and well-trained leader of its music. Of good 
literature in the library and the insistence upon the best we 
have already spoken. There is no way in which the pupil's 
higher tastes may be cultivated to more advantage than 
through a proper supervision of his books and reading. But, 
after all, as Dr. Roark has well said, "Art is beautiful only as 
it is a transcript of nature. , . . The teacher can do no better 
thing than occasionally to take his class or school for an after- 
noon walk through wood and field, and point out to the eager 
appreciation of boys and girls the beauties of tree and twig and 
leaf, of hanging vine and sturdy weed, of ferny bank and 
lichened stone and rail. , . . The boys and girls who, having 
eyes, have learned to see, and can keep their minds and hearts 
open to all the sweet influences that nature will pour in upon 
them, have learned to walk with face toward God, seeing him 
in all his world." 

The Moral Sentiments. Man is a social animal. He is 
thrown into contact with others at every step of his progress 
through life, and he must constantly regulate his conduct in 
view of these neighbors about him. Without the moral 
element he would be purely selfish like the animals. The 
weasel and the tiger are simply embodied selfishness; their 
whole life is a struggle for self at the expense of all other life 
about them. But man has evolved the idea of altruism, that 
feeling which takes account of the woes of others and seeks 
even at personal disadvantage to further the ends of another. 



146 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

He has made this into a science — ethics — "the doctrine of 
man's duty in respect to himself and the rights of others." 
This moral sentiment is composed partly of emotion — sym- 
pathy, pity, and the like; partly of intellectual process — • 
comparison, comprehension, and the like. It is needless, 
however, for our purpose to analyze it. We need only to 
consider its pedagogical bearings and its value from the stand- 
point of Sunday school work. 

The Basis of Morality* We must realize at the outset that 
no two pupils are alike in their moral development. Morality 
is partly inherited, partly acquired. "All men are not born 
moral equals. We cannot expect the same conduct from all." 
Then in addition to the inherited tendencies there are the 
associations and training of early years. The morals of a 
man are very largely what the first decade of his life made 
them. The problem of moral education is thus a very per- 
plexing one. To take pupils with widely varying instinctive 
tendencies, with widely varying powers of appreciation of 
the fundamentals of morals, and with all kinds of defective 
ideas gained during the early years in the home, and to train 
these pupils to a high standard of morals, is a task indeed. It 
requires great knowledge of human nature to know where to 
begin with each individual (for moral training is a task that 
must deal primarily with the individual) and what to take for 
granted. We talk glibly of the "honor system" in colleges, 
but there are as many ideas as to what honor is as there are 
students in the college. To apply the system to a class of 
boys below fifteen would be a hazardous experiment, for the 
simple reason that many of them have not yet thought out a 
complete working definition of "honor." A discouragingly 
large percentage of even an average college class have no 
very clear perception of the real meaning and limits of the 
word. Moral training often must deal with very crude mate- 
rials and it is a slow process. 

Moral Instruction. The teacher, especially if he works with 
children, must strive constantly to inculcate correct moral 
conceptions. Morality is the child's religion. He should be 
taught politeness, which is external good behavior, and, what 
is more important, good manners, which is spontaneous good 
behavior. The first will result always from the second. The 



MORALITY AND RELIGION 147 

child should be shown at every point how his actions affect 
other people. He should be taught how to be considerate, 
and gentle, and obedient, and he should be shown the under- 
lying reasons so clearly that these moral acts will become at 
length spontaneous. It is worse than useless to try to teach 
morals by mere scolding and paralyzing command. The 
child should feel as well as understand. We often take too 
much for granted; we treat the child as if he had our own 
conception of right and wrong. But does the child compre- 
hend? "Words miss the mark," says Dr. Marks, "unless they 
awakjen true echoes in the minds of those who hear them." 
The task of the teacher should be to make the external law, 
"Thou shalt not," become an internal law. It should become 
spontaneous. He who refrains from stealing simply because 
he is afraid of the law is not a moral man. Morality refrains 
from the act because of the inner law. The teacher, however, 
should be sure of his standard before he holds it before his 
pupils; but once sure of it, he should strive to make it seem to 
them the only reasonable standard. He should not try to 
force the rulings of his own conscience upon his pupil, but he 
should, rather, seek to arouse the pupil's conscience. 

Errors in Moral Training. Thorndike, in his Elements of 
Psychology, has noted four common mistakes in moral teach- 
ing. The first of these is ''To fail to foster the desirable in- 
stincts.'" He notes how babies are often neglected when they 
are good and fondled and pampered when they are bad ; also 
how the self-will of the child is often at first thought to be 
"cute," and is laughed at until the parent at length awakens 
to find that he has a spoiled son. The second error is "To 
inhibit directly by resulting discomfort a fully formed habit.'' 
The boy who desists through fear of a whipping will not desist 
longer when there is no longer danger of punishment. Estab- 
lished habits cannot be removed by mere threats or by beat- 
ings. There must be "heart-to-heart" work. The third 
error is "To value the feeling of effort for its own sake.'* The 
idea, "It is hard, therefore it is right," was a common one 
with the Puritans. "You do not wish to do this, therefore 
you ought," was still commoner. It is an Oriental or a 
monkish idea that the doing of the hard and almost unendur- 
able task, even though nothing come of it, is good spiritual 



148 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

discipline. The fourth error is 'To regard quantity of action 
as a sign of energy." The one who makes the most bustle 
and commotion often gets the credit for doing the most 
work, but "in well-directed action far more energy is con- 
sumed in restraining and guiding conduct than in merely 
arousing it." 

The Conscience. Psychologists have held many theories 
concerning the nature of the conscience. Some have ignored 
it altogether; others have analyzed it and found it composed 
of several primary elements; others have treated it as a dis- 
tinct function of the intellect. For our purpose there .is no 
need to consider the various theories. We can say with Dr. 
Roark, "It is enough that conscience is a part of the .mental 
endowment of the normal human being, and it does not spe- 
cially matter when or how he came by it." Conscience sits as 
the judge in the moral world. It weighs moral acts and both 
feels and forms judgments. It says, "That was wrong," 
"That was right," "Do this rather than that." "The inten- 
sified disapproval of conscience mingled with moral shame is 
remorse." Individuals have conscience in a varying degree. 
In small children it is feeble, just as all the other powers are 
feeble. It gains with experience and use; it decays with 
disuse; and, like everything else, if exercised rightly, it be- 
comes a habit. It is a call ever toward what is true and high 
and right. It is not, as many have supposed, a mere lash to 
make one feel uncomfortable after a wrong act, it is a guide 
before the act; it points ever to what is the way of peace and 
joy. Dr. Taylor has given six rules for the training of the 
child's conscience and the moral nature: 

1. Use negative or restrictive motives sparingly, relying, 
rather, upon positive motives or incentives. 

2. Appeal to the motive that the child can understand. 

3. Appeal constantly to the highest motive the child can 
appreciate. 

4. Improve each vantage gained to educate the child to 
appreciate a higher motive. 

5. Eliminate the personal or selfish element as rapidly as 
possible. 

6. Be patient for results. Relax vigilance only when the 
impulse to the good dominates the child's entire being. 



MORALITY AND RELIGION 149 

The Religioas Sentiments. In religion there are two ele- 
ments, as in all the sentiments: an emotional element which 
has its roots, perhaps, in instinct, and an intellectual element. 
The religion which makes use of only one of these elements is a 
distorted type. The religion of the intellect, with no mixture 
of emotion, is mere religious philosophy; the religion of the 
feelings, with no basis of reason, is superstition and mere emo- 
tional intoxication. The command to love God with the 
whole heart and the whole mind is founded on good psychol- 
ogy. There is no need for us to analyze and define and 
classify. It is enough for us to find the pedagogic bearings of 
the religious sentiment, and these we have already sufficiently 
investigated in Part i. Briefly, to review, the religion of 
early childhood is largely moral in its nature. The teacher's 
duty is to inculcate habits of reverence, obedience, and love. 
Example counts here more than anywhere else. "If anyone 
should ask me," says Bishop McCabe, "what most impressed 
me in my boyhood days, I would answer: The sight of my 
father coming out from the secret place of prayer every day 
at noon." The child should be taught to honor his father 
and mother. He should be led to feel the presence of God 
in nature and then the possibility of the presence of God in the 
life. "By our own reverent devotions, by look, voice, and 
every attitude of real worship we instill reverence into the 
child." There should be no effort to force an "experience" 
upon the child until he is ready for it, but there should be 
careful nurture. As we have seen, the time will come for 
religious awakening. It is one of the laws of the human 
organism that the call to the higher life shall come with power 
to the soul at the appointed time. 

Soul to Sottl. Finally, the teacher should realize com- 
pletely that moral and religious training is at its best when 
the teacher can touch the single soul. The most effective 
religious training is a matter of individual working with in- 
dividual. The teacher should study his pupils one by one and 
adapt to each of them the needed lesson. To lecture and 
preach. to a mass has its value, but to meet heart to heart each 
pupil at the proper time and adapt the message to his peculiar 
needs is religious pedagogy at its highest point of efficiency. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
THE MIND AND THE BODY 

Physical and MentaL As one reads some of the older psy- 
chologies one may derive the idea that the mental life is solely 
a matter of brain and nerve substance. Very little is said of 
the body; the investigation of that was considered to be the 
province of physiology, not of psychology. But the tendency 
now more and more is to consider body and mind together 
until the modern psychologist must know almost as much of 
physiology as the anatomist. It is as impossible to consider the 
two apart as it would be to study optics without any refer- 
ence to the eye. Every part of the human organism, no mat- 
ter how minute, is' linked to nerve or brain, and conversely 
nerve and brain would be absolutely nothing were it not for 
the body. Everything that aflects the body affects the mind, 
and vice versa. In the words of Dr. Stratton: "Formerly we 
believed that some strong emotional excitement, or a definite 
act of will, must be present if there was to be any manifest 
expression of the mental state. But it is now generally 
accepted that the body reflects every shade of psychic opera- 
tion ; that in all manner of mental action there is some phys- 
ical expression." 

The Physical Basis* Thinking is largely a matter of blood 
supply. No other part of the body is so fully supplied with 
blood as the brain, and the flow varies with the intellectual 
effort. During mental absorption the feet become cold be- 
cause the blood currents have been turned with such strength 
upon the brain that other parts of the body are neglected. 
Then, too, the quality of the thought and the power to con- 
centrate thought depend upon the quality of the blood. The 
thinker should be well nourished. Poor, ill-assimilated food 
results in poor, ill-assimilated thinking. Weak, sickly bodies, 
with certain notable exceptions, result in weak, sickly think- 
ing. There must be at least a vigorous supply of good blood 
if there is to be vigorous thinking. The body affects the 

150 



THE MIND AND THE BODY 151 

mental action at every point. *By reducing the supply of 
blood to the brain by pressing upon the main arteries of the 
neck one may totally suspend mental action. Disease, violent 
pain, or any other bodily disturbance may cause thinking to 
be impossible. "A clot of blood no larger than a wheat grain 
pressing upon the surface of the brain is sufficient to change 
a man of culture into an ignoramus, or one of eminent charac- 
ter into a moral wreck." Then, too, without the organs of 
sense there could be no mental action. The quality and the 
quantity of the thought depend upon the quality of the organs 
of sight and hearing, etc. Many a boy has been called stupid 
when he was only deaf. The difference between a bright 
child and an idiot may be a mere physical defect, one that 
could perhaps be rectified by a surgical operation. 

Cultivation of the Body. The old idea that to be holy one 
must mortify the flesh, or, in other words, despise the body 
and abuse it, was founded on false psychology. The older 
theology spoke much of our "vile bodies." Shakespeare 
makes the body a "muddy vesture of decay" that grossly 
hems in the soul. But the body is not necessarily the seat of 
vileness. If there is vileness it is precisely as much of the 
mind as it is of the body. The two cannot be considered 
apart; in the larger sense they are one and the same. To 
build up a healthy body is to build up a healthy mind, and it 
is becoming more and more to be believed that the converse 
is also true. "Viewed aright, the body is the great oppor- 
tunity for the mind ; it is the means of expression ; it must be 
depended upon in all cases where we act either for ourselves 
or for others. We must learn to respect it more, but to re- 
spect it only for what it can do for us in our higher aims." 
Cultivation of the body merely for the body's sake makes one 
a mere animal. The body is simply "the servant of the inner 
life," but it should be made as effective a servant as is possible. 

Abuse of the Body. Nowhere is the connection between 
body and mind more evident than in the results that come 
from bodily abuse. The effects of tobacco and alcohol are as 
much mental as they are physical. "He who drinks beer 
thinks beer, " is a trite old saying, but it is still true. The action 
of tobacco upon the nerves, especially of boys, is well known. 
After a careful investigation for some years of the students of 



152 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

Yale College it was found beyond the possibility of contra- 
diction that "tobacco inhibits the physical growth, and causes 
a loss of mental power in those addicted to its use." Says 
Dr. Krohn: "The vigorous action that college students them- 
selves have taken in this matter is more potent for good re- 
sults than anything that any 'old fogy' outsider could say or 
do. I refer to the well-known fact that no body of college 
students will give a place on any of the athletic teams, be it 
the football eleven, the baseball nine, the boat crew, or in track 
athletics, to a man who uses tobacco in any form. And, as 
any observer of college sports will tell you, this is not because 
it injures muscle alone." Experiments in thd laboratory show 
that alcohol, even in small amounts, retards brain action; 
taken until it becomes a habit, it destroys all of the finer 
faculties of the mind. Every teacher of boys should use all 
of his influence and all of his tact and powers of persuasion to 
prevent his pupils from becoming addicted to cigarettes. 
The deadly effect of this subtle poison, especially upon young 
boys, cannot be too strongly painted. Let the physician 
speak : 

"Cigarette smoking is an evil that deserves attention by 
itself. It tends to nervousness of the physical type and to 
stupidity. An examination made in Chicago schools reveals 
the fact that it took the children who smoked longer to make 
a grade than nonsmokers. Twenty-five principals were pre- 
pared to affirm that it took two years or longer, and twelve 
that smokers rarely 'make a grade' in' the strict sense. "V 

This much on the mental side. The teacher should try to 
form anticigarette clubs, and should bring all of his power to 
bear on the evil. The fact that an increasingly large number 
of the most prominent business houses now refuse to employ 
boys who use cigarettes should be a strong influence. 

The Law of DissoI«tion. When the powers of the mind be- 
gin to fail from disease, alcoholism, or old age, they fail in an 
order which is the reverse of that in which they were acquired. 
The last powers acquired go first. The finer things of culture, 
the skill, the tastes of later life, all disappear long before the 
acquirements of childhood are affected. The man may be 



1 Dr. Rowe. 



THE MIND AND THE BODY 153 

addicted to liquor ; he may be all his life a moderate drinker ; 
he may never become a staggering sot ; but his indulgence will 
attack first the higher sensibilities, and all unconsciously to 
him the finest part of him will steadily decline. When for any 
reason dissolution begins, "the intelligence," says Dr. Baldwin, 
"and moral nature are first affected, then memory, associa- 
tion, and acquired actions of all sorts, while there remainj 
latest of all, actions of the imitative kind, most of the deepset 
habits, and the instinctive, reflex, and automatic functions." 
It should be a fearful thought to every man who drinks even 
moderately that he is destroying the finest thing in his 
life, for the sensibilities go first, and often they begin to 
die out years before the foundations of the physical life 
have been affected. 

The Emotions and Health, The connection between body 
and mind is nowhere more manifest than in the effect of bodily 
condition upon the emotions. Everyone knows the connection 
between dyspepsia and irritability and melancholy. Bile in 
the blood leads to the "blues," uric acid in the blood causes 
irascible temper, alcohol in the stomach causes hilarity and 
violent excitement, indigestion causes headache and despond- 
ency. The effect of bodily position upon the mind we have 
already considered. Many of the emotions affect the appetite 
and banish sleep ; anger will impair the digestion and fear will 
stop the secretion of saliva. "You will find," says Dr. Taylor, 
"that the well-balanced emotional nature is usually a sign of a 
healthy, well-balanced physical organishi." The poets are 
full of illustrations: envy is "lean-faced," jealousy is "yellow- 
eyed," cares are "eating," hate is "cold," and murder is 
"withered." The joyous emotions, however, are healthful. 
Cheerfulness is the best tonic. "A merry heart doeth good 
like a medicine." "Laugh and grow fat." One should keep 
a cheerful mind and not worry; it will save doctor's bills. 
Professor Halleck quotes Dr. Richardson as follows: "The 
passions which act most severely on the physical life are anger, 
fear, hatred, and grief. ... Of all the passions I have enu- 
merated as most detrimental to life, anger stands first. He is 
a man very rich indeed in physical power who can afford to be 
angry. The richest cannot afford it many times without incur- 
ring the penalty, a penalty that is always severe." 



154 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

Mind and Matter. That the mind dominates the body and 
at times rises superior to it every physician well knows. 
There is a dynamic power in faith, no matter what that faith 
be in, that is beyond all estimate. There is no doubt that 
many of the cures alleged to be done at the shrines of saints in 
the middle ages actually took place as described. All good 
physicians use this principle of faith. The patient who has 
lost his faith in the doctor and who has given up is indeed in a 
precarious condition. An old soldier once declared that in 
the prisons during the war the sick one almost invariably died 
as soon as he gave up hope . Discouragement and worry and 
homesickness killed more than disease. Those survived who 
said to themselves, "This is all the home I have got, and I am 
going to make the best of it." The mind always dominates 
the body. Worry and fret and trouble-borrowing and surren- 
der to petty vexations are what make people grow old. One 
can keep young if one has a mind to. 

In the Sunday School. The teacher, first of all, must be 
sunny and cheerful himself, then he must preach the gospel of 
cheerfulness. He should impress it upon his class that the 
emotions of anger, hate, grief, envy, jealousy, and fear are 
wild beasts in flimsy cages, and that they may burst out and 
destroy all about them. He should make it clear that it is 
only by cultivating cheerfulness, and sympathy, and content- 
ment, and hope that we are assured of having healthy bodies 
and sound minds. Then there should come the great lesson 
of calmness and thoroughness and power through repose. 
Americans need more time for meditation, more reverent 
consideration of the highest things, and more poise and de- 
liberation. The higher life is not a strenuous life in the sense 
of "hustle" and rush. Elizabeth Harrison has expressed the 
matter perfectly: 

"The disease that is fastening itself upon the Christians of 
to-day is self -activity, the too great emphasis of what we must 
do, too little of what God has done. The bustling Sunday 
school superintendent; the hurried, impatient mother teach- 
ing her child his catechism while tying his necktie for Sunday 
school, are but modern versions of the story of Tantalus, try- 
ing to satisfy infinite longings with finite activities. Much 
of the well-intentioned primary Sunday school work loses 



THE MIND AND THE BODY 155 

half of its efficiency from the teacher's not understanding that 
the child must be in gentle, reverential mood before he can be 
in the right religious attitude. The teacher should approach 
this holiest temple of God with reverence. Is there a holier 
place than the soul of a child? "^ 

The Final "Word* Thus psychology lays hold of the funda- 
mental principles of human life and conduct. A knowledge 
of it should make one not only a better teacher but a better 
controller of his own living. Psychology is not a mere theory 
to be studied and admired and then dismissed; it leads at 
every point to action. It teaches that emotion and sentiment 
without expression are as dead as faith without works. "The 
lessons of church and of school," says Dr. Thorndike, "are 
unfortunately insufficient and even misleading. To feel love 
toward God and righteousness, to thrill with admiration for 
the heroes of history and fiction, to say fine things about 
truth and duty, these are too often accepted as virtues in and 
of themselves. Psychology teaches us that they are worthy 
only in so far as they are expressed in worthy conduct." If 
one knows that he can make himself cheerful and agreeable 
by the proper use of his mind and body, if he realizes that 
worry and fret are as easily removed as any other curable 
disease, if he knows the laws of habit and of memory culture 
and of will power — if he knows all these things and does not 
put them into practice, then has the subject, no matter how 
he may have enjoyed it, been a profitless one to him. Psy- 
chology is more than mere theory, more than a mere branch 
of human knowledge, it is a guide to correct living. The 
course that we have finished has been but a meager fragment 
of the great science. May no teacher count that he has com- 
pleted the subject, but continue on and on in his studies, for to 
learn psychology is to learn to know oneself. 



1 Study of Child Nature. 



PART III 
THE ART OF TEACHING 



157 



CHAPTER XXV 
THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 

Introdttctory. Thus far we have been considering largely 
the material with which the teacher must deal — boys and 
girls, men and women, minds that work always in obedience 
to certain laws. It remains now to study how to apply this 
knowledge. How shall the teacher present the lesson ? Most 
teaching is by question and answer; how shall he ask the 
questions? What shall he dwell upon? Shall he lecture to 
his class? Shall he allow them, on the other hand, to argue 
at length ? What work shall he have done outside the class ? 
What will be the best way to prepare a lesson in order to teach 
it effectively ? What illustrations will be effective ? All these 
questions have to do with the art of teaching, and the success- 
ful teacher must be able to answer them. 

In a general way this art is learned only through actual 
experience. Science, theory, may be learned from a book, 
but art is learned only through doing. Nevertheless, there 
are many points where the novice may be helped by the 
experience of others, and it is these bits of experience sys- 
tematized for his convenience that we call the Art of Teaching. 

Preparation the First Law. The very first law of the 
teacher's art is Preparation. The teacher before he comes to 
his class must not only know thoroughly the subject-matter 
of the lesson, but must have a complete and careful plan for 
presenting it. 

A certain professor of mathematics made it a rule early in 
his teaching life never to take a text-book into his class room 
and never to look into one during the recitation hour. Even 
though he has taught the subject now for years, he studies 
the lesson far more than does any one of his students. The 
results have been worthy of his pains : he wins his classes com- 
pletely, and students count it a rare privilege to be assigned 
to his divisions. "He knows what he is teaching," they say; 
"he knows the subject as well as the book does." And yet 
. 159 



i6o ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

,the man is by no means a great scholar; he is, rather, a great 
teacher, and his strength hes in his careful preparation. It is 
an old truism that knowledge is power, and it applies to no one 
more than to the teacher. How shall one lead others unless 
he know the way himself ? No true teacher will suffer himself 
to go before his class unless he is completely prepared. 

The Nat«re of Preparation. But what is it to be prepared ? 
Is it to be able to answer any question that may arise from 
the class? Is it to have gathered enough material to be en- 
abled to talk for half an hour? Is it to have enough questions 
to ask the class? It is far more than these. It is, first of all, 
a determination of what the object is that is to be reached. 
Why is this lesson to be taught? What am I to try to do? 
The teacher who has not a clear answer to these questions is 
working in the dark. To talk in an aimless way, letting the 
current of the lesson stray whither chance may bear it, is poor 
teaching. Many a teacher has said, "I didn't get further than 
the first verse," or, "We got switched off upon methods of 
baptism and didn't touch the lesson much," In other words, 
the teacher was not really prepared. He had not made a 
plan which he was to follow, and had not prepared his material 
in accordance with any plan. Preparation is, first of all, then, 
the planning of the campaign, and, secondly, it is the gather- 
ing of material to be used in the carrying out of the plan. 

The Study of "Wholes. I would advise as the first step in the 
making of the plan a careful reading of all the Scripture con- 
cerned. The Bible has suffered greatly from being chopped 
up into small parts and from being studied in isolated sections. 
Doubtless the majority of Sunday school pupils read no 
Scripture during either preparation or recitation of the lesson 
save the ten or fifteen verses printed in the lesson quarterly. 
Such a practice is utterly wrong. The teacher at least 
should read the whole context. For instance, one lesson 
is an episode from the book of Ruth. The teacher's first 
step in preparation should be a careful reading of the whole 
book of Ruth. If the lesson is taken from the Gospels, 
one should read from a good harmony the account as it is 
given in each of the records, noting the points of difference 
and of similarity. He should then read the Scripture im- 
mediately preceding and immediately following the account. 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION i6i 

If there is a gap between the lesson and that of the preceding 
Sabbath, the intervening Scripture should be carefully read. 
The Bible study required to-day is broad and comprehensive. 
It does not exhaust itself with spinning elaborate theories 
from single isolated texts; it takes broad views over the 
whole record, and triangulates, as it were, wide areas. The 
teacher who knows only the few verses assigned as the basis 
of the single Sunday school lesson is not prepared to teach. 

The Lesson Setting. The next step in the making of the 
plan is the determining of the lesson setting. First, what 
chronological facts are necessary ? If the lessons have to do, 
for instance, with the life of Christ, it is important to follow 
the story in order of time and to know as precisely as possible 
just when the episode under consideration took place. Here 
again a good harmony of the Gospels will be of value. In 
studying many other parts of the Bible it is very important 
that the element of time be carefully considered. Secondly, 
does the lesson call for map work? The Sunday school stu- 
dent should be made perfectly familiar with the geography 
of the ancient world. The exodus of the Israelites, the con- 
quest of Canaan, the locations of captivity, the boundaries 
of the tribes, the homes of the prophets, the journeys of 
Christ, the mission tours of the apostles, all should be followed 
carefully on the map. Good maps are published in most of 
the lesson helps and in many of the better editions of the 
Bible, Thirdly, there should be an attempt to get what may 
be called the local color of the lesson. How can we picture 
to ourselves the wooing of Isaac and Rebecca, for instance, or 
Paul speaking on Mars' Hill, or Jesus at the well, unless 
we know something of Oriental life ? Good pictures like the 
Tissot series help greatly here. Then, if possible, there should 
be readings from books of Eastern travel — The Land and the 
Book, for instance. Farrar's Life of Christ presents most 
vividly the Oriental setting of the Gospels. A good Bible 
dictionary should always be at hand for constant reference. 

The Lesson Plan. The teacher who has done this part of 
the work well will have no difficulty in teaching the lesson. 
On the contrary, another and greater difficulty will confront 
him. How can he present the fascinating settings of the 
lesson and not take too much time? He must be on his 



i62 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

guard; he must devote to this phase of the work not over 
ten minutes at the most. 

He must next determine upon the central truth of the 
lesson and study how to make it clear and forcible. It must 
be reinforced with the central truths of other lessons which 
have been studied, and then it must be applied in concrete 
form to the needs of the individuals of the class. The lesson 
is not to be studied merely as an interesting bit of history; it 
is to teach the student the great laws of God so that he may 
be able to live his life more richly and more effectively. The 
teacher must determine how much time he can give to each 
step in his presentation. Then there are illustrations to be 
found and questions to be planned. If he does all of this 
work well he will come before his class like a great dynamo 
charged with power. He will know twenty times as much 
about the lesson as he can possibly impart ; he will be like a 
living fountain, abundant, sparkling, refreshing. 

Teaching with an Object. Thus the teacher should have 
not only a subject to teach, but an object. He should prepare 
himself constantly with his class in mind. There can be no 
really effective teaching unless the teacher knows precisely 
what he is aiming to do. If he has doubters in his class he 
must plan his work in reference to their needs; if he has 
Christians only he needs to build them into a serener faith; 
if he has a class of unconverted adolescents the fact of their 
need of conversion will be continually before him as he pre- 
pares his lesson. His thoughts of his class must be very 
concrete. What can I do for Charley Brown? How can I 
present this so as to help James Burns? The teacher who 
plans his lesson with his class, as it were, before him will, in 
the long run, accomplish to the full his every purpose. 

The Study Habit. But where shall I get time to do all 
this? A fair question indeed. Many teachers are over- 
burdened with their daily round of duty and of toil. But it 
must be remembered that the very best Sunday school teachers 
are oftenest those whose time is almost completely taken up 
during the week. It is an old saying that "If you want any- 
thing well done give it to a busy man." It is simply because 
he is effective that he is busy. There can be no rule for the 
amount of time to be given to lesson study save this: take 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 163 

all the time that you can, and be regular. Miracles can be 
done if one economizes the odds and ends of his time. The 
historian Parkman for years could work only a few moments 
every day. "One hour a day," says Harden, "withdrawn 
from frivolous pursuits and profitably employed would en- 
able any man of ordinai-y capacity to master a complete 
science." Half an hour a day well used will enable any Sun- 
day school teacher to get his Sunday school lesson well, and 
in a few years will make him a notable master of the Bible. 
But the student must be regular in his work. He mUst set 
apart the time and adhere to his plan without exception until 
Bible study becomes a habit. 

Study and Attention. Many teachers find it hard to con- 
centrate their attention. They begin upon their study, but 
after a few moments they find that their minds are wandering 
far from the work in hand. They force themselves back again 
and again, but soon drowsiness comes and the task is over. 
Especially is this true of one who comes from a hard day's 
work. To combat this tendency one should choose the time 
of day when he is at his best, and should discipline himself 
by patient effort to give his whole mind to the task at hand. 
Some men can get more from an hour of study than others 
can from an entire day. There are those, indeed, who main- 
tain that genius is only another name for the power to con- 
centrate the attention. If it be true, then anyone can be a 
genius if he will, for the powers of attention can be cultivated 
as truly as can the strength of the muscular system. With 
perseverance and determination one can do what he will. 

Preparing for Primary "Work and for the teaching of the 
lower grades is far different from the preparing of adult lesspns. 
Here originality is called for in a marked degree. Stories, 
object material, memory passages, movement exercises, and 
the like must be carefully thought out in advance. The 
teacher who depends for her program upon the inspiration 
of the moment will have a hard time of it, but she who knows 
how every moment is to be used, who can pass rapidly from 
change to change, has her class in hand all the time, and 
works constantly with the minimum of friction. Especially 
should the teacher of the preadolescent class give attention to 
his preparation. He of all teachers must consider his pupils 



i64 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

and adapt himself to their peculiarities. He must study how 
to win attention and retain it. He must be ready with illus- 
trative material and with devices for gaining and holding 
interest. He must each week plan his campaign like a general 
in the enemy's country. Boys of this age will not sit still and 
be lectured to for half an hour; they will pay attention to 
exposition and doctrinal deduction. The teacher must find 
the point of contact and bring home teachings that will count 
for character. Every lesson presents a new problem requiring 
originality for its solution and careful planning for its applica- 
tion. 

The Lesson Period, Most schools give not over half an 
hour to the study of the lesson — a time all too short when one 
considers the work that should be done. Some teachers get 
so full of the lesson that they begin to teach as if they had the 
whole day before them, and are awakened by the superin- 
tendent's bell to find that the time has elapsed and they have 
barely got through with the preliminaries. The plan of 
every teacher should include a time limit for each section of 
the work, say ten minutes for introduction, ten for exposition 
and illustration, and ten for application, and he should hold 
himself carefully to these limits. Most teachers use up their 
time before they reach the application, and a lesson without 
application is only half taught. There should be a clear 
understanding between superintendent and teachers as to 
the precise length of the lesson period ; and the superintendent 
should never cut the time short. 

Assigning the Next Lesson, Finally, the teacher's prepara- 
tion should include an assignment of work for the next lesson. 
It is always well to give the individuals of the class each some- 
thing specific to do. This one is to read from Farrar's Life 
of Christ and bring in a brief report; another is to trace the 
journey on the map in red; all are to read the connecting 
chapter and bring in a summary. These reports need occupy 
but little time at the next lesson, but they should without 
fail be called for. Often the reason why pupils prepare no 
lesson is to be found in the fact that nothing has been sug- 
gested for them to do. It is perhaps not too much to say that 
"a very good estimate of a teacher's skill can be based on the 
manner in which he assigns lessons or tasks." 



CHAPTER XXVI 

AIM AND METHOD 

The Teacher's Aim. The teacher is now ready to stand 
before his class. He is master of the lesson; he has studied 
its details with care, and has arranged his materials in an 
orderly way. How shall he present them ? By what method 
can he with most profit conduct the recitation? Before he 
can answer this he must know what his aim is to be. What 
is the recitation for? Is it simply to impart information? 
Undoubtedly this element is an important one. The teacher 
must see to it that the Scripture story, the history, and the 
geography are known by his pupils. But this must never be 
the whole aim of the teacher. If he is teaching the lesson 
of the Good Shepherd, for instance, shall he make it his aim 
simply to impart information about Oriental shepherds and 
sheep and sheepfolds and robbers ? He can easily take up the 
lesson hour with this, but will he be teaching the lesson in its 
real sense if he does so? He will undoubtedly entertain his 
class. Many never get beyond this stage of teaching. They 
aim only at the pupil's head. They describe minutely coins 
and customs and houses and costumes, they dwell fully upon 
the background and the history and the geography, but they 
do nothing else. They are teaching simply for information. 
Then there are those who maintain that the aim of the recita- 
tion is to awaken interest and to cultivate right methods of 
study. This undoubtedly should be a large element in teach- 
ing. The pupil's intellect must be awakened and his self- 
activity stimulated, but even this aim should be joined with 
one that is higher. All teachers, Sunday school teachers most 
of all, should be builders of character. The Sunday school 
teacher should have it as his purpose so to present the truth 
that the learner shall add as a result of it another precept to 
his rules for living; that he shall understand himself and the 
ways of God and the principles of complete living better at 
the end of the period than at the opening. Many teachers 

i6s 



i66 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

have as their only aim the conversion of the class. For them 
the Sunday school has this as its leading function. One 
teacher went to his superintendent and asked for another 
class. "They are all converted now and there is nothing 
further for me to do. I want an unconverted class." "Ah, 
brother," replied the superintendent, "your work has only 
just begun. You have a class of newborn babes in Christ. 
The nurture of them will require your most careful efforts." 
The superintendent was right. The aim of the teacher should 
be the conversion of his class, but it should also be to feed and 
strengthen and build up stalwart Christian characters. The 
Sunday school is for Christian nurture. 

The Central Truth. The teacher, then, should have as his 
aim to bring out with clearness and force some living principle 
or principles. In the Sunday school lesson this is generally 
embodied in a Golden Text. At every step of his progress the 
teacher should have this in view. He should not be turned 
aside by any irrelevant question, no matter how attractive. 
Aimless discussion should not be tolerated; it does no good. 
If the lesson is about Daniel and the lions, the teacher, espe- 
cially if he has a junior class, may explain much about lions 
and their ways; he may also tell much about Daniel; and if 
he has an adult class he may dwell upon Babylon and the 
captivity and Daniel's place and influence; but if he teaches 
the lesson as it should be taught, every pupil will leave the 
recitation understanding as he never did before that God 
takes care of his own. Everything he has said and everything 
he has led the class to say during the entire period has cen- 
tered in this one great truth. In other words, the teacher 
teaches because he has a lesson to enforce. 

Concentration of Aim* Sporadic teaching — this week much 
information about lions, next week the facts about Oriental 
shepherd life, the week after a consideration of the flora of 
Palestine, and so on and on — leads to no definite results. It is 
unscientific and demoralizing. Merely to study the facts 
about Daniel and Babylon does no good except to entertain. 
The history of the past is of no use to us to-day save as it 
points a lesson which shall be of value for the present hour and 
for the future. We are dealing with the past, then, simply 
to gather from it some truth ; therefore there must be a well- 



AIM AND METHOD 167 

defined central truth in every lesson. But another step is 
necessary: the central truths of all the lessons in the whole 
series of lessons should bear upon and enforce one great cul- 
minating central truth. Next Sunday's lesson should build 
upon this Sunday's lesson, and so on and on, and every Sun- 
day's teaching should simply make clearer the central teaching 
of the whole quarter. With children this is imperative. The 
child who learns of God's love to-day, and the necessity of 
obedience to parents the next week, and the dangers of spirit- 
ual blindness the week following, is getting beads with no 
thread to string them on. He cannot coordinate his material. 
It becomes at length a mere mass of unrelated facts in no 
condition to use or to serve as the basis for the gaining of other 
facts. How much better, especially with children, to dwell 
week after week upon some single truth : obedience, for in- 
stance, Jacob's obedience, Joseph's obedience, Noah's obedi- 
ence, and so on, and then at the end of the month or the 
quarter to sum it all up in one great lesson on the duty of 
obedience to father and mother and teacher and God. With 
such a system every lesson can begin with a review. A series 
of studies in the book of John should have as its central aim 
that which indeed is the central aim of the book itself : "These 
things are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, 
the Son of God." Every lesson in the series should be viewed 
from the standpoint of this great central purpose. Such 
teaching is scientific. It is a building up little by little upon 
the materials already acquired. It is not a mere touching of 
the subject at haphazard — here to-day, over there to-morrow, 
away in another place the day after; it observes orderliness 
and unity. The new system of Graded Lessons will make 
this kind of teaching natural and easy. 

The Story Method. Having determined upon his aim, the 
teacher is now ready to select the method by which he shall 
present his material. In this he must be guided largely by 
the nature of his class. With children, as we have already 
seen, the story method is the most effective. There is little 
use to generalize with them and to present mere abstract 
truth ; the lesson., must be translated into the concrete and 
brought carefully within the realm of their experience. It 
may perhaps do some good to tell a boy that it is wrong to 



i68 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

kill birds and squirrels, but the better way is to tell a little 
story of a nest full of baby birds left to die because the mother 
has been wantonly killed by a boy. There need be no moral 
mentioned. The boy will make it for himself. The teacher 
of the restless class of small boys must continually use this 
device. He must start from concrete things that all will under- 
stand, and lead up to his point step by step. Hawthorne's 
story of Midas and the golden touch has no moral at the end, 
but no class of boys can hear it without realizing as never be- 
fore the uselessness of mere gold. The story method should 
be used even with the adult class. First tell realistically the 
lesson story — ^Jesus washing the disciples' feet, the hand- 
writing on the wall, the selling of Joseph, or whatever section 
of Scripture it may be. Bring forth then parallel instances 
which illustrate the same point. Show by concrete example 
how universal the thing is, and how it enters into the life of 
the present day and, indeed, into the life of each individual, 
then make your law. This requires work on the part of the 
teacher, and considerable originality, but it is true teaching. 
The Lecture Method* Some teachers talk during the entire 
period. It is as if they were preaching a sermon with the 
lesson Scripture for their text. There are some classes where 
this is of value. If the class is a very large adult class, the 
teacher will be compelled to do very much of the talking, espe- 
cially if the majority of the pupils have made no preparation. 
Many pupils, especially diffident ones, enjoy being members 
of such a class, and will attend it when they will no other. 
Says one writer: "There are probably few Sunday schools 
of any size which ought not to have at least one class con- 
ducted avowedly on the lecture method, provided only a com- 
petent teacher can be obtained." A competent teacher of 
such a class is, however, not easy to obtain. He should be 
good at explanation, he should be broad and sane, an easy 
speaker, and he should know the Bible perfectly. But to the 
greater number of classes in the Sunday school the lecture 
method does not apply at all. To educate is to give and take. 
There must be preparation of the lesson on the part of the 
pupil, and there should be constant cooperation. Every 
teacher should ask himself frequently this question: "Am I 
really teaching or am I preaching to my class?" 



AIM AND METHOD 169 

The Conversation Method. The skillful teacher depends 
much upon the suggestive question. He stimulates mental 
activity among his pupils : by skillful leading he gets them to 
discover the truth for themselves. Then after they have 
discovered it he proceeds to emphasize it and to make it 
clearer. The method centers upon the art of questioning, 
which we shall discuss fully in another chapter, but we may 
give a few suggestions here. The teacher who uses it may jot 
down during his preparation some such plan as this from 
Professor Marks for the teaching of the lesson about David 
the Shepherd Boy: "If possible, get all in the class to con- 
tribute something to the lesson. What do they know about 
shepherd life? Stories they have read, as 'Wolf! Wolf!' 
The difficult places David had to climb. The enemies of the 
flock. What kind of boy would make a good shepherd boy? 
What might such a boy do in the long, quiet hours of watch- 
ing? Would this kind of life be good training for a soldier? 
Tell of praying soldiers, such as Havelock and Gordon. Would 
such a man make a good king? What are the qualities of a 
king? Illustrate by patriot fighters, in whom religion was 
strong, and who rose to kingly position — Cromwell, Washing- 
ton, Lincoln, Garfield." The dangers of this method are 
that it does not lay much emphasis on the students' prepara- 
tion, and unless the teacher is skillful the conversation will 
degenerate into mere desultory talk. The teacher at length 
does nothing more than to interest the pupils and to skim 
entertainingly over the surface of things. 

The Recitation Method. By this method the pupil is 
assigned a lesson to study and his preparation is tested by 
means of questions. The teacher may become a mere task- 
master and examiner. Many a teacher, especially in small 
rural schools, simply asks in mechanical rotation the questions 
printed in the quarterly and stops when the list of questions 
has been exhausted. Often he accepts without comment what- 
ever answer may come and passes on to the next question. 
The method begets carelessness in the teacher. He is not 
compelled to study the lesson. Once when a superintendent 
asked a substitute teacher to take the place of one who was 
absent the man replied, "Well, I haven't looked at the lesson, 
but 1 guess I can put out the questions." The fault lies not 



170 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

so much in the method as in the ease with which it can be 
abused. It is generally recognized that "The recitation 
method, either alone or as the chief element of a combination 
of methods, is the best yet devised for pupils between the ages 
of eight and sixteen. What is needed is intelligence, enthu- 
siasm, conscientiousness in the employment of it." 

The Seminar Method. With many adult classes, notably 
with a class of educated young men or women, the seminar 
plan has worked admirably. Each pupil is assigned to pre- 
pare some specific phase of the lesson and 2omes to the recita- 
tion able to add his part. The method to be fully effective 
requires access to a good library. With a small class of 
earnest young people and a well-selected collection of books 
within easy access wonderful results may be accomplished. 
How rich the fruits that may come from a full year devoted to 
the different phases of the life of Paul, or a half year with one 
of the Gospels, or the Minor Prophets; such work long-con- 
tinued results in a broad education. The method may be 
used in a modified way in all classes. Boys of ten and twelve 
delight in having something assigned to them upon which 
they are to report next Sunday. Be it nothing more than the 
finding of a date or the learning of a verse the exercise will be 
valuable. 

The Combined Method* The true teacher is not confined to 
any one method. He combines the best elements of all sys- 
tems and so makes a method of his own. He assigns a lesson 
for study and sees to it that there is preparation; he asks test 
questions; he draws out opinions and illustrations from all 
his pupils; he tells illustrative anecdotes; he assigns work 
that must be reported upon; and he sums up and makes 
application from time to time in what are really little lectures. 
He varies his method from Sunday to Sunday, fitting always 
the method to the subject to be taught. In other words, he 
is original and he does his own thinking. After all, there is 
no set of rules that can be applied as formulas and be war- 
ranted to produce unvarying results. Rules are at best but 
suggestions. The true teacher makes his own rules. 



CHAPTER XXVII 
THE TEACHING PROCESS 

The Function of Teaching is to convey generalizations from 
the mind of the teacher to that of the learner. Human knowl- 
edge comes through experience, and this experience can be 
communicated to others only in the form of laws, or general 
statements — in other words, in generalizations. 

The Problem. But by what steps shall these generaliza- 
tions be conveyed ? To plant a new abstract idea in the mind 
of a child is no easy process. Simply to repeat the generaliza- 
tion, "God is good,^" makes very little impression. The 
words may be memorized by the pupil, but the idea w411 not 
be completely his until he has digested it. How shall the 
teacher be sure that this is accomplished? How shall he 
begin? What steps shall he take? Shall he present first 
the generalization and then carefully explain it, or shall he by 
illustration and application lead slowly to the point until the 
learner discovers the law for himself? To answer these ques- 
tions is to set forth the art of teaching. The teaching process 
concerns itself with the question of how to transfer generali- 
zations. 

Herbart. Whoever studies the steps in the teaching process 
comes sooner or later to Herbart, the great German educator 
who more than anyone else has formulated the methods of 
modem pedagogy. Herbart 's name is associated always with 
that of Froebel, and the two undoubtedly stand as the greatest 
teachers of the nineteenth century. "Froebel magnified the 
work of the child ; Herbart magnified the work of the teacher." 
Froebel lived with his children and studied them as a gar- 
dener studies his plants; Herbart approached the teaching 
profession from the standpoint of psychology, and made a 
system which follows the workings of the human mind. The 
work of Herbart has been summed up in three phrases: "The 
development of a psychology capable of immediate bearing on 
the problems of teaching; the scientific application of this 

171 



172 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

psychology to education ; and the revelation of the possibility 
of making all the activities of the schoolroom, including es- 
pecially instruction, bear directly upon the development of 
moral character." 

The Hcrbartian Method, Herbart's method is very simple, 
so simple, indeed, that any teacher can comprehend its steps 
at once and make practical use of it. It is simply following 
the natural channels of the pupil's mind. The first step is 
preparation of the learner; the lesson is introduced by means 
of a preliminary discussion; what the learner knows is care- 
fully ascertained so that the teacher may begin at the point of 
contact. The second step is presentation: the new lesson is 
now brought forth to be builded upon the sure foundation of 
that which is already known. The third step is association : 
the new is compared with older ideas by means of illustrations 
and specific examplec easily within the comprehension of the 
learner. The fourth step is concentration : everything is now 
gathered up into one central thought. The fifth step is appli- 
cation: the lesson is made personal, put into practical form 
for use. 

The First Step. Prepare the ground for the reception of the 
new lesson. The teacher must know the foundation he is to 
build upon, for, as we have already seen, perception comes 
only through ideas that we already possess. If one were asked 
to take the adult class in a strange school, he would be totally 
at loss as to how to teach it. Until he knew something of the 
class he would be working utterly in the dark. He would 
have to ascertain whether this class was well educated or not, 
whether it was made up of artisans or professional men or 
students. In other words, before he -could sow he would have 
to know what his ground was. In the same way the teacher 
of younger classes must realize the condition of the pupils to 
be taught. Are they city children or country children ? What 
things in the lesson can they be expected to know and what 
things would be foreign to their experience ? In other words, 
the point of contact must be found. 

The Second Step. The pupil having been prepared, and 
the point of contact found, the next step is to present the 
lesson material. If the subject is the parable of the lost 
sheep, step one has made clear what the pupils know about 



THE TEACHING PROCESS 173 

sheep and their habits, and, moreover, has created an interest. 
Sympathy and interest are largely matters of comprehension. 
The child is interested in anything that appeals to his past 
experience. The teacher may now tell the lesson story, as 
simply and interestingly as possible. The second step in 
teaching "consists of bringing in fresh thought or knowledge 
to lay by the side of that which the children already pos- 
sessed." If the class is an adult class which the teacher thor- 
oughly understands, the first step may be omitted. The 
subject may be introduced at once. 

The Third Step. But the teaching of a lesson is not like 
putting eggs one by one into a basket. Knowledge does not 
lie in the mind like unrelated heaps of pebbles; the mind, as 
we have seen, does network that way. Its materials must 
be bound together by association. Association, indeed, is . 
the very soul of memory and of comprehension. We under- 
stand only as we compare the new fact with others that we 
have already comprehended. Therefore the third step of 
teaching is to bring forth illustrations and comparisons by 
which to make the new idea perfectly clear. From a lost 
sheep it is easy to get to a lost coin, a lost gem, a lost child. 

The Fourth Step. The pupil is now ready for generaliza- 
tion. The specific instances which have been so carefully 
presented can now be drawn upon for a general law. The 
central truth can now be set forth with confidence, for the 
learner is ready for it. If the pupil can be led'to do this for 
himself it will come with tenfold more force. "To supply 
ready-made morals to stories is bad teaching," says Professor 
Adams. "The pupil must work out the moral for himself; 
but when once the moral has been won the teacher may well 
devote some effort to give that moral the most effective ex- 
pression." A few carefully asked questions will generally 
win the central truth if the first steps have been wisely taken. 
"The wording should come from the child himself, being an 
immediate outgrowth from the data which he has at hand." 
It may be crude and even grotesque, but if it shows a com- 
prehension of the main thought, it will be sufficient. The 
teacher should, however, clothe it in better words. 

The Fifth Step. The pupil has now been led to add a general- 
ization to his fund of knowledge. It has been so founded 



174 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

upon the related facts that he already possessed, and has been 
so carefully compared and associated with other things which 
he knew, that he now possesses it as his own. One more step 
remains: he should not merely understand it and assent to it 
or consider it merely as an interesting fact, he should be 
taught to use it. It should be applied to his own individual 
life so as to lead him to action. Mere knowledge unused is a 
"dead possession." 

We shall now consider with more detail these five steps of 
the teaching process. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
ILLUSTRATION 

The First Step, which is known as the step of preparation, 
need not detain us. We have already carefully considered 
it in the chapter on "The Child's Standpoint." Most teachers 
know their classes so thoroughly that the step need not be 
taken at all. Even with such classes, however, it is well to 
prepare to some extent the child's mind. Suppose the lesson 
is about the sower and the seed, and the teacher has selected 
as her central truth the loving care of God. It would be well 
to ask many questions to draw out what the children really 
knew of seeds and sowing. She "should endeavor to call up 
as many related ideas as possible, especially those which ar^ 
closely welded to the personality of the child." 

A Word of Caution is necessary at this point. Some teach- 
ers in their eagerness to gain the attention of the pupils at the 
start and to commence at the point of contact have given 
their most attractive and impressive material at the opening 
of the lesson. Do not begin by firing big guns and then spend 
the rest of the time "in a painful struggle to retain the atten- 
tion of the scholars." Do not make the illustration more 
interesting than the lesson ; the illustration is only a means 
to an end. It too often is made to become the end itself. It 
is well with children to begin with questions to determine 
what their experience has been. They should be made to talk 
freely at this stage and should be led skillfully until all under- 
stand the ground from which the start is to be made. Says 
Marks: "For a teacher, as sometimes happens, to come away 
from a lesson and not know whether the children had ever 
had a lesson on that subject before, or whether any of them 
had ever read anything about it, is, in all probability, to have 
wasted not only time and energy but a golden opportunity of 
enlisting the pupils' willing cooperation. Children ought to 
have the pleasure of showing what they know. Telling them 
what they know already is not teaching, but getting them to 

175 



176 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

tell it to you is.'' Prepare, then, the way for the new by call- 
ing up and freshening the older ideas that bear on the new. 
Says De Garmo: "If nothing springs forth from within to 
greet that coming from without, the lesson will be meaning- 
less and the pupil unreceptive. Things new and strange can 
only be appropriated by means of a wealth of old ideas, and 
the plan of recitation must see to the preparation of these old 
materials during the first step." 

The Second Step. The teacher is now ready for the presen- 
tation of the lesson from the standpoint which the first step 
has revealed. With children this is usually done by the story 
method. With adult classes the assigned portion of Scripture 
is rapidly surveyed and the portion from which the central 
truth is to be evolved is kept prominent. The teacher is 
now presenting his new material which it is his purpose to 
unite with the old material in the child's mind. The process 
is psychologically sound. We strive in the first step to find 
what separate ideas the mind of the pupil contains and which 
of these we may single out for our purpose.' In the second 
step we bring out new single ideas which we wish to add to 
the pupil's stock. These first two steps are therefore per- 
ceptual — they deal with single particular things, percepts. 
The third step consists in combining the two into concepts. 
It considers the relation between things; it helps the learner 
to pass from percepts to concepts, which is, after all, the 
chief province of teaching. 

Association. Herbart's third step in the teaching process 
is known as association, and under it is included all that 
is comprehended under the term "illustrative material" — 
stories, objects, figures of speech, allusions, parallel instances, 
contrasts, and the like. Having found what the learner al- 
ready knows, the teacher interprets the new idea in terms of 
this old experience. He is continually illustrating. If he 
presents only unrelated ideas, he is making no progress, for 
the mind works by association. Every new impression or 
idea must be interpreted by material already acquired. A 
percept is recognized only as it is combined with the results 
of other percepts. Concepts are grasped only as they are 
referred to other concepts already mastered . I hear a sudden 
roar in the distance and say, "It is thunder." A soldier 



ILLUSTRATION 177 

might say, "It is artillery"; a quarryman, "It is a blast"; a 
boilerman, "It is an explosion." To all it is absolutely unin- 
telligible save as it is referred to previous experience. "I am 
a part of all that I have seen," cried the epic warrior Ulysses, 
and it is so with each of us; we are the sums of our past ex- 
perience, and we are little more. A party of Esquimaux were 
once taken from their arctic home to London. It was sup- 
posed that the great metropolis would fill them with continual 
excitement and amazement. Instead, they walked along the 
streets in stolid apathy. They could not comprehend it. 
There was nothing in their previous experience with which to 
interpret it. The only things that attracted them were a 
dog and the window of a furrier. It is this principle that is at 
the basis of the proverb, "The pilgrim to other lands finds 
only what he takes with him," What would the treasures of 
the Vatican be to a Georgia field-hand? What is Venice to 
him who for fifty years has known nothing but stocks and 
bonds and accounts? In precisely the same line it may be 
asked, What would heaven be to him who has given his whole 
life to selfish gratification and vile imaginings? 

Its Importance, The art of illustration, then, is the very 
foundation of pedagogy. The power to use it, says Dr. Greg- 
ory, is the "chief and central power in the teacher's art," 
There can be no real teaching without it, for the mind works 
only from the known to the unknown, from percept to con- 
cept, from concrete to abstract. It may be said that the 
mind follows the same laws as polite society : the new are not 
admitted unless they come introduced by the old. The 
ability to bring in telling illustrations from material, with 
which the pupil is familiar is a rare gift, but all have it to some 
degree and all should cultivate it. The good teacher is con- 
tinually studying her pupils. She watches them in their play, 
she finds out their little interests and enthusiasms, she gets 
as much as she can of their home environment, and she uses 
all of this material for illustration of her teaching. There can 
be no ready-made book of illustrations; each teacher must 
think out his own material and must do it with the actual 
members of his class in his mind. The illustration that 
illumines is the one which is taken right out of the life of the 
person who is being taught. 



178 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

Attention, But illustration has yet another value : by the 
use of it the teacher may catch and hold the attention of her 
class. Attention, as we found in our studies in psychology, 
depends largely upon interest. Certain interests are native 
to childhood, as the interest in play, in stories, in pets, in 
novelties. Illustrations drawn from these are sure to gain 
attention. Childhood finds little in sermons save the illustra- 
tive material, and, indeed, many adults have gone home 
from the preaching service remembering nothing save some 
vivid story which had been used to illustrate a point. Then 
there are acquired interests. The traveler reads absorbedly 
the time-table, the mathematician listens eagerly to the ex- 
position of dry formulas, the scholar works for hours over 
lifeless etymologies. To arouse a pupil's interest one must 
touch upon some enthusiasm, some past experience in his 
life, some acquirement or cherished wish. One boy who has 
spent a week at the seashore is all attention whenever the 
beach and its phenomena are mentioned; another who is 
dreaming of building a boat as soon as he has money enough 
will prick up his ears at any hint concerning boat building; 
another who has constructed a miniature electric railroad 
that will "work" will listen attentively to an elementary talk 
on electricity that under other conditions would have bored 
him intolerably. To win attention, then, bring illustrations 
that appeal to the interests of the class. With children it will 
be an appeal almost wholly to native interests; with adults 
it will be almost wholly to acquired interests. The teacher 
who is continually illustrating his points within the realm of 
his pupil's interests will have from the beginning to the end 
their undivided attention. 

Imagination. Again, illustrations produce correct and 
vivid images in the minds of pupils. Every scene and action 
in the lesson will inevitably be imaged in some way, but 
without the teacher's help it will be a false image, often gro- 
tesquely so, and it will be dim and vague. Suppose the lesson 
is about Jesus at the Pool of Bethesda. "Now there is in 
Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, . . . having five porches. 
In these lay a multitude of them that were sick," etc. The 
word "pool" is vague and confusing; calls up no definite 
image. The teacher's first duty is to illustrate the scene. 



ILLUSTRATION I79 

He may do it something like this: "It was a place, the walls 
made of stonework, below the level of the street, about as 
large and deep as this room. Let us imagine that we are in it. 
The floor is water. On this side the entire length of the room 
is a flight of twenty-five stone steps up to the street level. 
At the top are the porches [describe them] full of the sick 
people." Then picture the scene when the shout rang out, 
"The water is moving" — the great, excited throng scrambling 
frantically down the steps. Cripples would be hobbling for 
dear life, paralyzed people fairly rolling down the steps, etc. 
The pupil will after such work carry home a correct and vivid 
picture that he will never forget. All graphic story-tellers 
make large use of illustrations. Victor Hugo compares the 
battlefield of Waterloo to an enormous letter A. In one of 
his books he says : ' ' Imagine Paris taken off like a lid and be- 
hold the sewers, a mighty tree," etc. The Union position 
at Gettysburg has been likened to a fishhook with Round Top 
the ring and Gulp's Hill the point. The teacher should con- 
stantly strive to translate the lesson into familiar terms, and 
see to it that each pupil carries away a correct and vivid 
image. 

The Conscience* Often an illustration is the only appeal 
that can be made to the pupil's conscience. The leader of a 
certain gang of slum boys came to Sunday school one morn- 
ing with a new hat. "He stole that hat," one of the others 
told the teacher, looking over at his chief, admiringly. The 
leader acknowledged the impeachment with pride. He had 
done a smart thing and was something of a hero. What was 
the teacher to do? Any kind of preaching about the sin of 
stealing would have been greeted with expressions of derision. 
But the teacher knew her class. "What would you do if any- 
one stole your hat?" she asked. "Knock the stuffing out of 
him!" was the prompt reply. "Why would you?" she asked. 
Then by skillful questioning, little by little, she placed the 
boy in the attitude of the one who had lost his best hat. Then 
she told a story of one who had had something stolen, and the 
result was that in the end the boy said, "I guess I had better 
return the hat, don't you?" Nathan's skillful handHng of 
David (2 Sam. 12. 1-14) should be read with care by every 
teacher. The skillful illustration and then the dramatic 



i8o ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

application — "Thou art the man" — are potent quickeners of 
the conscience. The boy who kills birds, or steals water- 
melons, or plays pranks on aged people, can often be ap- 
proached in this way when all other methods fail. 

Varieties of Illustration, Illustrative work may be divided 
into two classes : i . Verbal illustration, which may be divided 
into (a) parallel instances and contrasts, and (b) figures of 
speech. 2. Material illustration, under which may be com^ 
prised all teaching by means of objects, pictures, models, 
maps, blackboards, and the like. With adult classes and 
with older classes of boys and girls verbal illustration is used 
almost entirely, though maps and models and pictures are 
much used to supplement it; with smaller classes the two 
are almost evenly combined, for the stories told to children 
are in reality illustrations. 

I. Verbal Illustration, (a) Under the head of parallel 
instances and contrasts comes all story material used for 
illustrative purposes. Such material may consist of extracts 
from standard prose and poetry; but if such be used, it should 
be perfectly simple and within the comprehension of all the 
class, and it should really illustrate. It would be well, for 
example, while teaching the lesson about the death of Moses 
to have some one of the class read the old poem, "On Nebo's 
Lonely Mountain"; or, if the lesson is about the widow of 
Nain, to have Willis's well-known poem read. But such work 
should come in with perfect spontaneousness ; poems should 
really illustrate and should never be brought in merely be- 
cause they are pretty. Dr. Taylor tells of an architect who 
was consulted about certain decorations that were to be used 
for mere effect. "That," said the architect, "would violate 
the first rule of architecture. We must never construct 
ornament, but only ornament construction." The purpose of 
the illustration is to make perfectly clear what otherwise 
would be hard to understand. 

Sources of Illustration* The more spontaneous the illus- 
tration the more effective it will be. The trouble with books 
of illustration and with all other ready-made illustrative 
matter is that the material often seems to be dragged in de- 
liberately as something outside of the teacher's experience, 
and is therefore wooden and lifeless. Illustrations so far as 



ILLUSTRATION iSi 

possible should be personal, drawn from the daily life of the 
teacher and the class. The good teacher is constantly on the 
watch for material. He gets it while watching his boys at 
play, while talking with them about their school life and 
games, and while reading the newspapers. He puts himself 
in the way of material by asking questions of artisans and 
professional men and practical workers in every line. A 
friend of mine never goes away on the train without coming 
back with a fund of illustrative matter drawn from some one 
with whom he has had a long chat about his occupation. If 
one is awake to the life about him he will find more material 
than he can possibly make use of. A mere line in a magazine 
to the effect that it took five hundred tons of dynamite to 
construct a certain tunnel furnished one teacher with a fine 
illustration. Suppose it had all been exploded at once in- 
stead of being doled out in thousands of explosions during 
several years. What a lesson on the value of prudence and 
patience and persistent effort! Then the Bible should be 
drawn upon constantly for parallel cases. It is often a valu- 
able exercise to ask members of the class to bring in illustra- 
tive material from other parts of the Bible. A good reference 
Bible will make this work very easy. But the best material, 
especially for junior classes, comes from the lives and occupa- 
tions of those actually being taught. There are few ethical 
problems that cannot be made clear to boys by illustrations 
drawn from the games which take up so much of their time 
and enthusiasm. 

The Namber of Illttstrations. Some teachers illustrate 
too much. After all, the illustration is only the scaffolding 
thrown up to help erect the main truth. When once the truth 
has been fixed, then the scaffolding is torn down and forgotten. 
A lesson sometimes degenerates into a mere series of stories 
with little aim. The pupil who goes home remembering 
illustrations and nothing else has been badly taught. If 
more than one example is given to prove one point the two 
are liable to become mixed and to neutralize each other. 

The Abtise of Illtjstrations. Not only is there danger of the 
illustration's dominating the lesson and obscuring the truth 
to be taught, but there is also danger of its being pressed too 
far. Young children very often reach startling conclusions in 



i82 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

this way. Professor Adams has brought this out very clearly : 
"Our Lord is not the least like a vine, though he holds the 
same relation to his followers as the vine does to its branches. 
Yet there is a strong temptation for pupils and teachers to 
carry over resemblances of the things compared instead of 
confining their attention to the relations. This is particularly 
objectionable in cases where God is compared with men. 
Our Lord himself uses parables in which the Father is repre- 
sented in a very human way. But there is a broad generality 
about his pictures that frees the mind from all petty detail. 
The trouble arises when these parables are expounded and 
worked out in great detail." He then illustrates how the 
parable of the man who went at midnight to borrow three 
loaves was once expounded. The neighbor was in his warm 
bed, reluctant to arise and go to the kitchen, etc. ''Warm 
bed and the kitchen spoil everything." Especially is there 
danger in figurative language. "He shall be like a tree planted 
by the rivers of water," "My cup runneth over," "For in so 
doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head," should be 
carefully explained to children. If the illustrations of the 
Bible are carefully explained, and not pressed too far, and if 
the teacher uses simple illustrations easily within the compre- 
hension of his class, and uses only just enough to make clear 
his teaching, there will be no danger. 

(b) Figurative Language. The greater number of verbal 
illustrations are figures of speech. The human mind natu- 
rally expresses itself in figures. The greater number of our 
nouns are of figurative origin. The eye of a needle, the brow 
of a hill, the crest of the ridge, the head of the bay, are familiar 
examples. Indeed, Emerson has declared that language is 
"fossil poetry," since each word and phrase was originated by 
some one who in a moment of inspiration saw a relation be- 
tween two or more things and gave it a name. We speak of a 
tempest of grief, a sunny disposition, a burst of wrath, a fiery 
debate. The Bible is full of figures; the teaching of Christ 
especially abounds in them. "The kingdom of heaven is 
like" occurs again and again; "I will liken him unto a wise 
man, which built his house upon a rock"; "Go to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel"; indeed, it was said, "Without 
a parable [figure of speech] spake he not unto them." 



ILLUSTRATION 183 

The Use of Fig«res. The most useful figures for the teacher 
are the simile, where the comparison is directly stated : "They 
that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion" ; and the meta- 
phor, where the comparison is not stated, but implied: "Thy 
word is a lamp unto my feet." It is almost impossible to 
explain any principle or to describe any object without the 
simile. A man wishes to explain how a certain chemical 
affects India rubber. "It makes it tear just like blotting 
paper," he says, and instantly it is clear to us. The stone 
before the tomb of Christ was like a large grindstone. It 
stood up against the rock covering the tomb opening, and it 
could be rolled to the right or the left. Whenever the teacher 
can translate the unknown into terms of the known by means 
of the word "like" he is doing real teaching. "A like is the 
key that enables us to unlock and to enter the door of the 
unknown." To read through the words of Jesus underlining 
every like will impress anyone with the great pedagogic value 
of this simple device. The metaphor is not always so clear 
as the simile, but it is more forcible : "Judah is a lion's whelp," 
"Ye generation of vipers," "Go ye, and tell that fox," etc. 
Graphic story-tellers make effective use of the metaphor. 
Kipling's metaphors are always fresh and striking. The 
fog blankets the sea — "Earth and sea and sky are milled up in 
a milky fog." He speaks of a "phonograph voice," "the 
dead dark," "the whirring wheel." Metaphors must not be 
dragged in for mere effect; they must be spontaneous and 
they must really illustrate. In teaching children all figures 
should be avoided that contain elements that are foreign to 
the child's world, and all figures in the Bible lesson should be 
carefully explained. 

2 , Material Illtistrations* The second class of illustrations 
includes everything of a material nature that may be used for 
illustrative purposes: objects like flowers and nests and other 
things from nature, maps, pictures, models and modeling 
apparatus, blackboards, and the like. At the start a distinc- 
tion must be made between object lessons and object-teaching. 
Object lessons are lessons about objects; object-teaching is 
the imparting of truth by means of objects. Under the for- 
mer is included the nature study of the secular schools. The 
pupil is taught the life history of a plant or an insect; he 



i84 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

studies the varieties and habit of birds and the classification 
of flowers. The only object is the increasing of the pupil's 
fund of knowledge. With the latter the chief aim is to impart 
some moral truth. Christ used this method constantly, "Be- 
hold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do 
they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father 
feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?" (See 
also Matt. 6. 28; 10. 29: Mark 12. 15.) Manifestly, object 
lessons as they are given in the secular schools cannot be 
used to any large extent in the Sunday school; there is not 
time enough for such work. The very nature of the Sunday 
school demands moral teaching, and with children it is very 
difficult to give this without appealing to the senses of touch 
and sight, but the object-teaching must be done with extreme 
care. It is very easy by bringing in plants and nests and 
models and the like to gain and keep the absorbed attention 
of the class, but what will the individual child carry away 
from the exercise? Too often it is a mere object lesson and 
nothing else. The object must be a stepping-stone to be for- 
gotten when the central truth has been reached. The teacher 
should not try to do too much. Let her take a bud to the 
class and explain how the loving God when it was bedtime 
for the woods and fields tucked in carefully the little baby 
leaves. Some buds can be unrolled disclosing the tiny forms. 
She can then tell other things that God does in his love, and 
so make it clear to the little hearts that God is love ; that he 
watches over even the smallest things, and that he watches 
over" them. The teacher who has accomplished only this 
has, nevertheless, accomplished a great deal. Let the 
teacher not be too ambitious. Let her object-teachings be 
extremely simple; let them not dominate the lesson but be 
merely helps toward the end sought, and let them be few and 
carefully planned, 

Pictttres. With children the eye is more active than the 
ear, and with very young children the sense of touch is 
more trusted than either of the other two. The baby is not 
satisfied until he gets the object in his hands. The child's 
world is enlarged by means of pictures. They control the 
imagination, since they give material for correct images. The 
teacher in the primary and intermediate grades should con- 



ILLUSTRATION 185 

stantly be on the lookout for picture material. She should 
have not only the leaf clusters and the lesson cards but also 
miscellaneous pictures culled from many sources. "The 
Bible is a great picture book" ; its background, the marvelous 
Orient, with its color and picturesque life, offers infinite oppor- 
tunity for the artist, and this opportunity has been used to 
the full. The artists of centuries and of the whole world have 
vied with each other in producing biblical pictures. The 
number of masterpieces with biblical subjects is beyond num- 
ber, but it is possible now to get really excellent copies of the 
more famous of these for a merely nominal price. Series like 
the Perry pictures are cheap and excellent. It is now possible 
in this country to get beautifully colored post cards repro- 
ducing the most famous pictures in continental galleries. 
There are many books for the Sunday school library full of 
wonderful pictures, like Farrar's The Life of Christ Treated in 
Art, Van Dyke's The Christ Child in Art, Jamieson's Sacred 
and Legendary Art, and the like. There are photographs of 
the Holy Land to be had for ten cents per copy, blue prints 
of biblical scenes by the old masters at one cent apiece, and 
those who cannot afford even these can get much material 
from Christmas catalogues of publishers and post card dealers 
and picture houses. The child should be shown always the 
best. He should be brought up with copies of the great 
masters. In this way there will be cultivated in him not 
only a taste for the best in art, but also a knowledge of biblical 
things and a reverence for the old Bible stories such as nothing 
else could bring. 

Modeling and Sand Pile "Work, For the impressing of geo- 
graphical facts there is nothing like the sand pile and the pulp 
raised map. The sand pile can be had even by the poorest 
school, A shallow box some two feet by four, mounted on 
legs, and several quarts of damp sand are all that are needed. 
With this can be modeled relief maps of the Holy Land and 
other parts of the biblical world, plans of the temple and its 
environs, diagrams of Eastern houses, sheepfolds, and similar 
things. A child who has made the low level of the Jordan 
valley, the peak of Hermon, the projecting hump of Carmel, 
the plain about Nazareth, the mountains round about Jeru- 
salem, and has located Bethlehem, Nain, Galilee, Jericho, 



i86 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

Jacob's Well, Hebron, Lebanon and other points, has a grasp 
upon the subject that can be gained in no other way. The 
sand pile makes the subject more real. It gives the elevations 
and shows why certain routes of travel were pursued rather 
than others. Nearly all of the battles of the Old Testament 
were fought on the plain of Esdraelon, and a mere glance at 
the raised map shows why. It is the only extended place in 
Palestine where chariots could be driven. The rest is moun- 
tainous and inaccessible. The mountains round about Jeru- 
salem preserved the kingdom of Judah long after the northern 
tribes had disappeared. Even the adult classes would profit 
often from an hour with the sand pile. For the Junior De- 
partment ptilp modeling is a valuable exercise. A sheet of 
ordinary papermaker's pulp is torn into fine bits and boiled 
vigorously in water for several hours. Each of the class is 
then given a small tray, about the size of a slate, and a handful 
of this pulp. The material is then worked into a raised map 
by means of the fingers and a small sponge. After the map 
has been thoroughly dried it can be removed from the tray 
and mounted on a blue card — the blue representing the Great 
Sea and the Jordan valley. If wood pulp cannot be obtained, 
old newspapers torn up and boiled will do nearly as well. 



CHAPTER XXIX 
BLACKBOARD WORK 

False Methods. The last subject under the head of material 
illustration is the blackboard. Perhaps no phase of Sunday 
school work has been dwelt upon more in conventions or in 
handbooks of methods, and it may not be too much to say 
that perhaps no phase of the work has been more open to 
criticism from the standpoint of sound pedagogy. Too often 
has the blackboard been filled with mere puzzles and rebuses 
and picturesque combinations. Symbols of all kinds have 
been joined with alliterative phrases and lists of words be- 
ginning with the same letter or arranged in a series so that 
when "beheaded" the first letters will spell a certain word, 
and so on and on to the confusion of good teaching. Haslett 
describes a typical device: 

"It showed a small picture of a prison. On the level roof 
of the prison was the word 'Tells,' and arched at the top of 
the picture were the words 'Be of Good Cheer,' while immedi- 
ately under the arch were the words in a kind of puzzle form, 
'God's Promise to Paul in Prison.' On one side of the picture 
at the end of the prison was a puzzle which read, 'Brave Boy,' 
and at the opposite end of the prison was another puzzle thus : 
'40 plot Against Paul.' I translated it, after some study, 
thus: 'Be of Good Cheer. God's promise to Paul in prison 
tells one brave boy forty plot against Paul.' I was not sure 
whether the 'forty' referred to boys or promises. The whole 
affair was quite ingenious, but it is difficult to see why peo- 
ple want to obscure the teachings of the lesson in any such 
way." 

The blackboard is a valuable device. One can hardly con- 
ceive of a secular schoolroom that is not provided with ex- 
tensive blackboard space, but one will look in vain in these 
schoolrooms for any blackboard teaching of the type found 
in many Sunday schools. In the lower grades the board 
is used largely for the pupil to practice drawing or penmanship 

187 



i88 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

upon, or for problems in arithmetic. The teacher may often 
supplement her object lessons with a simple drawing, but 
it is always with a view to making the object better under- 
stood. Analogies are seldom touched upon in the public 
schools. 

The Primary Room, It is an uncontested fact that children 
learn more by means of the eye than by means of the eari 
With all of us "seeing is believing." The eye must be ap- 
pealed to or we are neglecting one great means for education. 
But carefully chosen pictures skillfully used satisfy largely 
this demand. The blackboard may supplement these, how- 
ever, but in the use of it certain laws are imperative: i. Be 
sensible. Keep constantly in mind the child's limitations and 
his standpoint. What impression is the little one carrying 
away from the blackboard exercise ? The teacher who makes 
a large heart on the blackboard, then makes a door to it, 
and shows how bad things may enter by pinning on inside 
the heart pictures of various animals — a wolf for anger, a 
monkey for vanity, a pig for gluttony, and the like — then has 
a picture of Christ come and knock at the door, and then enter 
and displace the animals, must be very sure of his ground at 
every step. It might amaze him could he for a moment look 
at the exercise from the standpoint of one of the children. 
Such an exercise is absurd even for imtermediate pupils, or 
even adults. 2. Be simple. One cannot use complicated de* 
vices in the primary room. There should be but one idea in 
the illustration and that should be made perfectly clear. The 
word "Obey" placed on the board during the Sundays when 
obedience is studied is blackboard enough. Even those who 
cannot read will learn it. After a time there can be added 
"Obey Mamma," "Obey Papa," etc. There should be no 
attempt at elaborate drawing. Only the expert should at- 
tempt faces or animals or costumes. In telling the story of 
the feeding of the five thousand the teacher may say, "It is 
the story of the boy who helped." She may then make three 
curved lines for the mountains in the background, then straight 
lines representing the people, and then a short straight line 
representing the boy. She should do this as she talks. It is 
all that is needed. 3. Make the illustration a means and not 
an end. The pupil who goes home remembering only the 



BLACKBOARD WORK 189 

picture has not been well taught. He should go home with the 
idea, "That boy helped, and I should like to help too," To 
make sure that the blackboard does not dominate the lesson 
erase the design as soon as you are through with it and then 
have one of the pupils tell the story without it. 4. Don't use 
the blackboard every Sunday. Many lessons cannot be illus- 
trated, and it is worse than useless to rack one's brain for far- 
fetched material when none is really needed. Unless the 
illustration springs spontaneously from the lesson it is of 
little use. 

The Use of Symbolism. To what extent symbols, like 
crowns and harps and crosses and anchors, are valuable in 
teaching is an open question. Secular education, which is 
based on purely practical results, makes little use of them. To 
translate a lesson into symbols may, perhaps, make it graphic 
to adult minds, and may, perhaps, aid the memory, but it is a 
doubtful device with children. The lesson should be made 
a personal matter; it should add to the pupil's fund of infor- 
mation ; it should urge to better doing ; it should suggest con- 
crete action on the part of the learner and not be a mere trans- 
lating of it into an intellectual abstraction. When symbols 
are used, as, for instance, a heart pierced with the arrows of 
sin, they should be made a mere means to an end, and this 
end should be a personal application. Too often blackboard 
illustrations are merely ingenious; often they are as intricate 
and as original as sonnets. They hold the attention of the 
pupil, but too often they have no other effect than to elicit 
the admiration of the adult classes and amuse the chil- 
dren. True teaching should strike home by short simple 
methods. 

Necessary Blackboard "Work. For certain things the black- 
board is imperatively demanded. In teaching biblical geog- 
raphy to junior and intermediate classes it cannot be dis- 
pensed with. The teacher who is explaining the geographical 
facts about Palestine should make a rough map, talking as he 
makes it. He should draw the western coast line, then the 
Jordan with the Lake of Galilee and the Dead Sea, then make 
Hermon and Carmel and the mountain ranges. Then he can 
indicate positions of the leading cities and towns. Anyone 
can do this rapidly, and it is the most helpful map that can be 



190 ELEMENTS OE RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

made. The superintendent who gives to his schools for ten 
minutes every Sunday a talk on biblical geography illustrated 
in this way on the blackboard is doing vital work. But there 
should be no mere pouring-in process. Each pupil should 
have a notebook or a pad and be required to make a copy of 
the maps from Sunday to Sunday, and these books should be 
examined at intervals. The blackboard is also needed for 
summaries and reviews, for plans of buildings, like the taber- 
nacle or the temple or the ordinary Jewish house. . When the 
lesson is about the life of Christ, or the journeys of Paul, or 
the patriarchs, the journeys should be traced from Sabbath 
to Sabbath on an outline may be of the pupil's own making. 
Sometimes computations can be made, as, for instance, the 
time from Solomon to the second temple. A calendar can 
be made of Christ's last week on earth, and a list of his dif- 
ferent appearances after the resurrection. This is the nat- 
ural use of the blackboard, and it is most valuable in its 
results. 

Individtial Blackboards. It would be ideal if every class, 
or, at least, each department, could be in a room by itself 
with its own apparatus, but this in most schools is impossible. 
The teacher of a class which is surrounded on all sides by 
other working classes has, it would seem, small chance for 
blackboard work. But the difficulty has been obviated by 
the use of individual blackboards, something like slates. 
Much better, however, are the pencil and pad. The lesson, 
perhaps, is about the ark of the covenant. The teacher 
makes a drawing of it and holds it up for each of the class to 
copy ; or he brings out a central truth and has it copied ; or he 
makes an outline map which the pupils make after him. In 
this way classes of juniors are often kept busy to their own 
great profit. If one wishes to learn the outlines of anything, 
or the relative positions of places, there is no surer way than to 
make a drawing. 

The Official Blackboard. Many schools find it profitable 
to have a board exclusively for announcements. The at- 
tendance is posted together with the attendance on the cor- 
responding date for several years back. The collection is 
posted in the same way, often with a simple word of encour- 
agement or warning. Banner classes in attendance are 



BLACKBOARD WORK 191 

noted, and all announcements and plans for new work. 
Often the songs for opening and closing are also posted. 
Such a board should not be crowded, and everything on it 
should be written so legibly that all parts of the room can 
read it with ease. 

Special Devices. Many teachers believe in pictures cut 
from the leaf clusters and pinned upon the board to supple- 
ment the crayon sketch. For example, several lines are 
drawn to illustrate mountains in the background, then a line 
is drawn to represent a road. On this road is pinned the 
figure of a kneeling woman — the Syrophoenician woman — 
then the figure of Christ with arm outstretched to her, then 
behind him the smaller figures of the disciples. A large num- 
ber of such pictures can be obtained by the teacher who is 
watching for such material. Once in a while (the value of an 
exercise is increased when it comes as a surprise) a special 
device may be used. The Sunday School Times has a picture 
of some twenty closed doors, on each the name of some great 
organization, like Wanamaker, Marshall Field & Co., U. S. 
Army, Western Union Telegraph Co., Union Pacific, Lehigh 
Valley, etc., and entitles it "Doors Closed to Cigarette 
Smokers." Mr. Lawrance tells of a striking exercise: 

"I saw Mr. E. A. Fox, of Kentucky, use this illustration 
on one occasion with good effect. He was trying to teach that 
the best way to get rid of a bad habit was to get rid of it all 
at once, and not a little at a time. He wrote the word habit 
on the board thus : 

HABIT 

He then erased the H and said, 'You have A BIT left'; he 
then erased the A and said, 'You still have a BIT'; he then 
erased the B and said, 'You still have IT'; then putting the 
whole word upon the board again he erased it all at once. 
Those who saw this will not forget its lesson." 

A Final "Word. Those who have ever watched in public 
school or college a great teacher at his work will remember 
how as he taught he was constantly turning to the blackboard. 
The crayon is constantly in his hand. Now he places on the 
board the Latin word from which he has traced an etymology, 
now he makes a rough diagram, now he puts down a number 
that your eye may supplement the ear. He is making the 



192 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

distinction between the use of in and the use of into and in- 
•\'oluntarily he makes a diagram : 



o 



INTO 



This is the true spirit in which the blackboard should be used. 
The illustration should come spontaneously and a-t the mo- 
ment when it is needed. Elaborate work made at leisure dur- 
ing the week and then unveiled at the proper moment before 
the class accomplishes little. The teacher should talk, chalk 
in hand, and illustrate as he goes. Merely to stand by the 
board as if about to use it will hold the attention of a class to 
your words in mere expectancy. There is no need of elaborate 
design; the teacher need not be an artist or even be good at 
drawing; anyone who can make a mark can illustrate. The 
child's imagination will fill all gaps. Merely to draw a paral- 
lelogram on the board and then to ask the children to imagine 
certain specified details of a picture within it is often enough. 
The teacher at the blackboard should ask himself constantly 
this question : How can I while I am giving the lesson to the 
ear make it clear at the same time to the eye, not by elaborate 
work but by a simple and most direct appeal to the things 
the pupil knows best? 



CHAPTER XXX 
THE APPLICATION OF THE LESSON 

The Fourth Step. The lesson has now been presented and 
has been translated in terms of the learner's experience. He 
has understood it, and digested it. He is now ready to put 
it into portable form to be added to his fund of knowledge. 
In other words, the lesson must be condensed into a generaliza- 
tion. This arriving at general statements is, as we have 
already observed, the primary aim of all instruction. 

But when shall the generalization be presented? Shall it 
be given at the start and then be made clear with explanations 
and illustrations, or shall the process be reversed? Before 
answering the question it will be well to explain that the 
arriving at generalizations is the primary aim of all instruction. 
First the particular, then the general, is the law of the mind. 
The race acquired its stores of knowledge wholly in this way. 
For instance, a certain tribe of Indians placed in each hill of 
com a fish for fertilizer. Doubtless some prehistoric Indian 
once observed a particularly fine stalk of corn growing from 
where a fish had been dropped. That was a particular in- 
stance. Out of curiosity he planted some corn with a fish 
near it and found this also to spring up more luxuriantly than 
usually. This also was a particular instance. He may have 
tried it yet again. Then came his generalization : Corn al- 
ways grows better when a fish is dropped with it in the hill. 
This generalization became at length a part of the wisdom 
of the tribe, or wisdom, which is the end and aim of educa- 
tion, consists of a body of generalizations which have been 
learned from particular instances. The child does not have 
to get his general ideas as the race got them, but nevertheless 
he must go through the same general process. Education 
must proceed from the particular to the general. GeneraHza- 
tions come last. 

The Moral Not to be Forced. But this does not mean that 
every story must end with a moral, nor does it mean that 

193 



194 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

every lesson shall be translated into goody-goody platitudes 
to be doled out at the end of the hour, as, for instance, "Hon- 
esty is the best j3olicy," and the like. It means simply that 
every lesson shall be taught with a purpose in view, and that 
this purpose shall be evident to the class at the end of the 
period. The object of the teacher is not simply to interest 
his pupils by telling good stories, nor to study a portion of 
Scripture merely as an interesting bit of history or literature ; 
it is to enlarge their conceptions of life and to help them to 
right living. The class of children that has been taught 
aright the miracle of the loaves or the healing of Naaman will 
go home not repeating some copybook phrase, but with the 
new thought that even little boys and girls may help just as 
much as big people. If the lesson material has been skillfully 
handled they have discovered the truth by themselves, and 
will therefore always retain it. Truth learned by rote has no 
associating material to hold it, but truth learned by systematic 
steps, even if forgotten, can be regained again, the material 
by which it was acquired being still in the mind and requiring 
only a review to yield the same result as at first. The leader 
of the teachers' meeting should see to it that his class of 
teachers determines upon some central object for which the 
lesson is to be taught, and that a large part of the hour is 
taken up with a discussion of how this central truth can most 
effectively be brought out. It must not be obtruded upon the 
class in such a way as to miss its purpose and degenerate into 
the mere preaching of a perfunctory generality, but it must 
come naturally and with seeming inevitableness. 

The Last Step* Then should come the application — the 
most important part of all. The majority of teachers seldom 
get to this step. The superintendent's bell finds them in the 
midst of the lesson describing this or that custom, dwelling on 
the bearings upon church doctrine of this or that passage, or 
finding as many central truths as possible in the lesson and 
explaining at length in useless platitudes why they are central 
truths. To stop at this point is to teach the lesson simply as 
an intellectual exercise. The purpose of the Sunday school is 
to mold character, and the molding of character is accom- 
plished only through the actual doing of things. No one ever 
grew into a Christian or a moral life through the mere study of 



THE APPLICATION OF THE LESSON 195 

central truths or moral maxims. One must exercise oneself 
unto godliness. 

Training for Habit. In our study of psychology we found 
that habit grows or decreases as the result of activities, that a 
mere intellectual assent accomplishes nothing toward charac- 
ter unless it be accompanied by doing, and that a constant 
arousing of the higher emotions through music or preaching 
or art, unless followed up always by actual deeds, results at 
length in moral impotency. We sometimes hear the phrase 
"gospel-hardened" applied to certain congregations, and 
there is a real psychological basis for the term. The Sunday 
school pupil who year after year is shown the great truths of 
the religious life, and while assenting to them never once puts 
any of them into practice, at length becomes atrophied in his 
moral nature, just as the doctor or the nurse throtigh long 
contact with suffering becomes at last hardened and unsym- 
pathetic. To talk glibly of unselfishness, and of laying "all 
upon the altar," and of going where Christ wants us to go is 
one thing, but actually to do it until it becomes a habit is 
something far different. We are the results of the things that 
we do and not of the maxims that we copy into our notebooks. 

Theory and Practice. It is hard to teach children even in 
the secular schools that their studies are for immediate appli- 
cation and not far-off things to be of use, perhaps, when they 
are grown up. It is the rare teacher who can teach the rules 
of grammar, for instance, so that they will be seen to be of 
immediate use. To the child all studies are mere theoretical 
things to be mastered because the teacher requires it. This 
explains why the practically educated man often at first dis- 
tances the man from the schools. The boy brought up on the 
farm, or in the store, or in a practical industry, gets his knowl- 
edge for no other purpose than to apply it at once. He has 
no theory; all that he knows he got with a definite idea of 
immediate results. The Sunday school too often has been a 
place for the teaching of mere theory. The material acquired 
was not so much for immediate use as for a sort of insurance 
against future need. This ideal should be changed. The 
pupil should be taught that he goes to Sunday school to learn 
how to live to-day, and that the principles acquired there are 
for immediate application. "It has been said over and over 



iq6 elements of RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

again by the best teachers and writers on education that 
principles and rules are never safely mastered till they have 
settled into the usual practice and conduct of a child." 

Self- Activity. There can be no morals apart from conduct. 
It matters not how beautiful or impressive may be the lesson, 
if it does not in the end result in conduct it has missed its aim. 
The parable of the talents teaches plainly that we can have 
only what we use. The Sunday school should be a constant 
inspiration to better doing. The child should learn to obey, 
to pray, to be of service, to control his temper, to be honest, 
to be cheerful, to be punctual and orderly. Self-activity 
should be the watchword; let the ruling word be Do rather 
than Dont. Life is simply a place for applying knowledge; 
and the Sunday school is the place for obtaining moral and 
religious knowledge for immediate application. Every lesson 
should lead to doing. The pupil should be a better pupil on 
Monday because he went to Sunday school the day before. 
He should not only know what the great moral virtues are, 
but he should be already practicing them because he has been 
taught to do. The mother must do much of this, but the 
Sunday school can greatly supplement her work. ' ' Religion," 
said one mother, "is representing God in common things. 
It is learning to forbear to be impatient; to pick up your toys 
and obey." The side of actual doing constantly dwelt upon 
leads at length to the doing habit. The child who is properly 
taught in the Sunday school fifty-two weeks in the year, and 
year after year, acquires at length a habit which in later years 
he will prize as his most precious possession. 

Simplicity of Application. The teacher should not try to 
do too much. One simple truth derived naturally from the 
lesson is better than a half dozen forced applications. Often 
teachers of adult classes ask each person in turn for some 
teaching of the lesson, and the result is often as many truths 
as there are members present. It is better to settle upon one 
central truth, and then to ask each member for ways in which 
it may be applied actively to daily life. There should be no 
forced application. Better have no moral teaching than to 
drag in farfetched and unnatural teachings. 

Methods. To make telling applications of the moral teaching 
of a lesson requires skill and tact and a knowledge of one's 



THE APPLICATION OF THE LESSON 197 

class. In the adult department it is usually easy to arrive 
at the central truth, but rather difficult to make the personal 
application. One cannot ask each member, class-meeting 
fashion, how the truth applies to him. He can, however, 
bring out the lesson in concrete terms. If it is about honesty, 
he can show how farmers, or workmen, or tradesmen are to be 
honest; he can give illustrations of honest men, and dwell 
upon the thrill of pleasure that upright dealing brings to the 
dealer. He can have the class give instances and end the 
hour with a symposium of testimony, so that all can go forth 
feeling that strict honesty henceforth shall govern them. 
The same thing can be done with intermediate and junior 
classes. Strict honesty in the playing of games and in school 
examinations can be dwelt upon. A skillful teacher can 
make it appear such a mean thing for a boy to cheat in a game 
that all will hang their heads at the mere thought of doing it. 
With the lower classes the story must be trusted to bear its 
own moral. Here the learner may be told, after the way has 
been sufficiently prepared by story and illustration, some 
specific thing that the good child loves to do. Each can be 
told some particular thing he is to guard against during the 
week and can be asked at the next exercise what he has done. 
It is impossible to give rules for procedure. Each teacher 
must make his own laws and must apply them as he can. 

One great commandment he must, however, obey : Let not 
your class leave you at the end of the hour equipped merely 
with a little more knowledge, but see to it that they have also 
been filled with the desire to improve in some degree their con- 
duct, and thus to take one more step toward' a strong Christian 
character. 



CHAPTER XXXI 
THE ART OF QUESTIONING 

The Use of Questions. The art of teaching is very largely 
the art of questioning. One may impart knowledge in two 
ways : he may pour it in, or he may draw it out. True teach- 
ing is not a mere lifeless dropping of potatoes one by -one into a 
sack; it is, as it were, a ball game, a give-and-take, a contest 
with life and zest and eager interest, where the pupil is as 
much alive as the teacher and does his full share, and the 
game is played very largely with question and answer. 
There can be very little true teaching without questioning; 
and skill with question and answer is the measure of the 
teacher's ability. Tell me the questions which a teacher 
puts to his class and I will tell you very nearly what the 
teacher is. 

Classes of Qwestions* From the pedagogical standpoint 
questions may be divided into three classes: (i) The pre- 
liminary question, which is to be used in connection with 
Herbart's First Step (chap. 27) ; (2) the developing or suggestive 
question, the design of which is to stir the mental activity of 
the pupil and enable him of himself to arrive at the conclusion 
which the teacher desires; and (3) the test question, which 
is designed simply to find out what the pupil has learned. 

The Preliminary Question. The preliminary question 
searches for a proper foundation upon which to build. The 
engineer who is to construct a railroad in an unknown region 
sends out an exploring expedition to report on routes, and 
grades, and ma,terials, and methods of juncture with sources 
of supplies, and work already done. So with the teacher. 
The condition of the pupil's mind must be found out; the 
new materials must be joined to the old; there must be com- 
prehension and sympathy and interest. The point of con- 
tact is found most easily by means of questions. The teacher 
who has been long with her class does not need to grope 
about much for this point of contact, yet no teacher knows 

198 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 199 

her class so well that she can build without preliminary 
work. Every teacher, no matter how wide her experience, is 
constantly being surprised at limitations in her little pupils. 
It is never safe to take much for granted. The pupil may 
have certain words like Pharisee, disciple, prodigal, Jews, 
Gentiles, and the like, at his tongue's end, and yet have 
very hazy notions about them. It is safe to test each step 
and to build with full knowledge of the foundation. 

Preliminary "Work Illtistrated. Let us take for an illus- 
tration the lesson "Saul Chosen King" (i Sam. 10. 17-27). 
The teacher of the teachers' class or the adult Bible class 
should begin by asking questions the answers to which will 
give the substance of the last lesson and fill up the gap be- 
tween it and the lesson in hand. Without this preliminary 
work the lesson becomes a mere isolated fragment. Then 
may come questions as to the reasons why Israel had no 
.king, as to the customs of the nations at the time, and as to 
the internal condition of Israel religiously and politically. 
Not over five minutes should be given to this part of the 
lesson. With children the approach must be very different. 
The teacher has selected, perhaps, as the central truth of 
the lesson the words, Each one of us is a ruler over something. 
The preliminary questions will be about kings and presidents 
and rulers generally. The story may then be told of Saul, 
who, while about his everyday work, faithful in little things, 
ruling himself, found a kingdom. Then by skillful transition 
it can be shown that God has chosen each one of us to be a 
ruler: a ruler of his tongue, his temper, his heart, his feet, 
his hands. With older boys and girls the teacher may call 
for cases of apparent accident that later seemed to be the 
ruling of God. The pupil's knowledge of history and of the 
Bible may be drawn upon. Then the class may be set to 
finding the various seeming accidents by means of which 
Saul came to his kingship. There can be no formula for 
this part of the work. The teacher must study each lesson 
and plan his own approach. Good preliminary questioning 
calls for information, thought, and originality. 

The Developing Question. Real education comes only 
through self-activity. The teacher's aim constantly should 
be to get his pupil to think for himself. The teacher in the 



200 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

public school who does all the problems for his pupils, and 
explains everything, and tells everything and requires his 
pupils simply to watch and listen, may be popular with his 
school, but he is not a teacher. He is an entertainer. The 
lesson should be developed by means of questions which 
set the pupil to thinking. Such questions as. What did Saui 
do next? or Was God pleased because they wanted a king? 
suggest nothing. In many classes they are answered by 
the mere reading of a passage from the lesson text. Such a 
question, however, as, By means of what apparent accidents 
did Saul become king? is suggestive. The pupil may have 
read the whole account and not thought of any accident 
connected with it. Now he sees it in a new light. "Why, 
this was an accident," he says, "and that was surely an 
accident. And here's another." The teacher has set him 
to thinking. I know of a group of teachers who assemble 
weekly in a teachers' meeting. It is made up of diverse 
elements. There are among others a clergyman, a farmer, 
an old soldier, a college professor, a business man, a public 
school teacher, and an artisan. The teacher sometimes 
directs his questions to the entire class, and sometimes to 
the individual best adapted to answer it. His suggestive 
questions on "Saul Chosen King" would be something like 
this: To the soldier: "What baggage would there be likely 
to be?" To the professor: "What instances in history of 
kings who were physically head and shoulders above their 
people? What was Carlyle's definition of a king?" To the 
class : ' ' Have there been mighty kings who were insignificant 
physically ? " To the teacher : ' ' Are modesty and diffidence 
always signs of merit? " To the clergyman : "To what extent 
do accident and chance rule our lives?" To the business 
man: "Have you ever known of a case where sudden re- 
sponsibility placed upon a man has changed his whole char- 
acter?" To the class: "Does God call all men to their 
work?" To the artisan: "Is a king in God's sight greater 
than a laborer ? How are we called to be rulers ? " To the 
farmer : * ' Why did Samuel write it in a book ? " To the class : 
' ' What is to be said about those ' worthless fellows ' ? " 
Questions like these, carefully handled, with little oppor- 
tunity given for extended argument, will keep a class busily 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 201 

thinking throughout the lesson hour and will send them 
home thinking. 

The Method of Socrates. The greatest master of the sug- 
gestive question undoubtedly was Socrates, the Greek 
philosopher. He worked almost entirely by means of ques- 
tions. It was his favorite device to represent that he himself 
knew nothing, but that he was earnestly seeking knowledge. 
According to his theory men are ignorant because they will 
not think. They suppose they know all about a certain thing 
and therefore do not trouble themselves to find out the truth. 
Socrates, therefore, taught them by means of three steps. 
First, 'by questioning them he made them aware of their 
own ignorance; then by further questioning he made them 
eager to know the truth; then by still further questioning 
he made them think their way through the difficulty until 
they were as certain of the right solution as they had pre- 
viously been of the wrong. 

There is no better example of this so-called Socratic method 
than that used by Jesus with his disciples in Mark 8 : " And 
they reasoned one with another, saying, We have no bread. 
And Jesus perceiving it saith unto them, Why reason ye, 
because ye have no bread? do ye not yet perceive, neither 
understand? have ye your heart hardened? Having eyes, 
see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not 
remember? When I brake the five loaves among the five 
thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces took 
ye up? And they say unto him, Twelve. And when the 
seven among the four thousand, how many basketfuls of 
broken pieces took ye up? And they say unto him, Seven. 
And he said unto them. Do ye not yet understand ? " 

Limitations of the Method. The weakness of the Socratic 
method was its insistence upon the theory that nothing 
should be told the pupil, but that everything should be 
drawn out. But how can we draw out that which is not 
present? Socrates believed that we come from another 
existence, bringing with us experiences and knowledge 
gained there, and that education is simply an awakening 
of this old material in the intellect. But no one believes 
this to-day. Hence we use the art of illustration with its 
parallel cases, its object lessons, and pictures, and stories 



202 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

to give the child material with which to interpret new 
material. Within certain limits the Socratic method may- 
be used even with small children, but we must pause often 
to explain and illustrate. The suggestive question helps 
the pupils to think for themselves, and thinking for oneself 
is one of the chief objects of education. 

The Test Question. Many teachers use the test question 
to the exclusion of all others; with them every recitation 
is an examination. All of us have been in classes where the 
teacher used the questions printed in the lesson leaf, ques- 
tions something after this pattern: Where did Samuel call 
the people together? (Verse 17.) What did he say to them? 
(Verse 18.) What did he command them to do? (Verse 19.) 
What tribe was taken? What family and individual were 
taken? (Verse 21.) Where was Saul found? What did 
Samuel say concerning him? (Verse 24.) What did the 
people shout? etc. No lesson can be more lifeless than one 
conducted after this manner. The pupils are questioned 
in turn, and each when the turn comes to him responds by 
reading the indicated passage. There is no originality and 
no thought. Now, every lesson help should be provided 
with a list of questions, but they should be suggestive ques- 
tions, and they should be used by the teacher only to help 
him in his thinking. The test question is of value in reviews. 
Many teachers begin their work with a few questions upon 
the last week's lesson: These are test questions. The 
quarterly review also should make large use of this device, 
and even during the development of the lesson it may be 
used with profit at times; but the teacher must not forget 
that true teaching is not a mere testing of the memory, but 
that it is a creative exercise: it stirs the pupil into activity 
and makes him think for himself. 

Class Management. He who is skillful at questioning will 
have little trouble with the discipline of his class. There 
are five laws for the securing of attention by means of ques- 
tioning: I. Be brisk and enthusiastic. The successful teacher 
enters upon his half hour with his whole soul. He allows no 
drags and no tedious pauses. He does not wait long for 
answers; he transfers his questions from pupil to pupil, and, 
failing of an answer, he asks the class. Enthusiasm is always.. 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 205 

contagious ; businesslike directness and vim appeal to all 
classes. It is impossible for pupils to dawdle and play when 
the teacher is really teaching with unction. 2. Ask the 
qtiestion, then designate the one who is to answer. There shoul4 
be no such thing as calling the class in rotation. The teacher 
should not look at the one who is to recite. Each pupil 
should be at attention. He should feel that the next ques- 
tion is likely to come straight at him. 3. Seldom repeat a 
question. If the pupil first asked was inattentive and re- 
quests a restatement of the question, do not oblige him. 
Call upon another and another, but without repeating. 
4. Constantly direct questions to those who are inattentive or 
mischievous. Keep them busy every moment. Return to 
them again and again with, "What do you think of that, 
Charlie?" and "Is that the right answer, Willie?" or "You 
read the verse, Charlie." 5. Call often for concert work. 
With young classes this is very helpful. When one has 
made a good answer, say, "Now let the whole class say that 
together." "Now Charlie, Willie, and Francis." "Now 
all together again." The teacher should play upon his class 
as upon an organ. He should have every element under 
control. The class well questioned will be too busy for 
mischief. The slow, deliberate teacher who questions in 
rotation, reading from the lesson help — who repeats his 
question, and waits for each answer, then answers himself 
if no response is forthcoming — is sure to have a dawdling 
class, and, if it be composed of junior or intermediate pupils, 
a mischievous one. 

Elliptical Qaestions. Many teachers make use of what 
may be called the elliptical form of question. They give 
a part of the sentence, then pause interrogatively for the 
pupil to complete it : " Samuel called the people together 
at — ?" "The Golden Text is, He that ruleth over men 
must be — ?" The form should be used but rarely. It 
stimulates no thought and no self-activity on the part of 
the learner, and in most cases is an insult to his intelligence. 
It may be used profitably sometimes with diffident children.. 
Dull pupils can often be got to recite in no other way, but 
the method is to be used sparingly. 

Yes and No Questions. The same thing may be said of 



204 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

questions that may be answered by Yes or No. "The 
chances," says Dr. Home, "are too great in favor of a guess. 
Besides, the pupil misses by such an abbreviated answer 
training in connected discourse and in the adequate expres- 
sion of rehgious ideas." Did Saul want to be king? Was 
the Lord pleased that Israel wanted a king? Was Saul a 
large man? are poor questions. They teach nothing. The 
Yes and No question is not always out of place, however. 
There are times when it is of vital importance whether the 
pupil answers Yes or No. Questions beginning, "Do you 
believe — ," or "Would you — ," etc.; all questions, indeed, 
where the pupil must take a stand, or must think and then 
range himself on one side or the other, are of real value. 
The form, too, is often of service to draw out dull or diffident 
children. 

Leading Q«estions» The questions should not be asked 
in such a way that the pupil must answer as the teacher 
wishes. The question often has its answer written, as it 
were, all over it. "Was not this wrong?" and "Wouldn't 
it have been better to have obeyed?" are examples. The 
question should be wholly free from any suggestion as to 
the answer desired. Not even by tone or manner should 
the teacher influence the answer. "You desire to lead an 
unselfish life, do you not?" will be answered in the affirma- 
tive by every Sunday school pupil, but the answer means 
nothing at all. When Decision Day results are based on 
the answers to questions like these they are pretty neady 
worthless. Often a pupil will say he does not understand 
the question, meaning it does not suggest its answer to his 
mind. Do not injure him by favoring him. Rather be sure 
the question is intelligible, and then let him give the answer. 
Remember the aphorism, "The telling teacher is not the 
telling teacher," It is well, too, to avoid the asking of ques- 
tions in the words of the Scripture passage on which the 
question is based. The pupil's familiarity with the text 
makes the answer inevitable. For instance, a teacher ques- 
tioning upon the parable of the prodigal son might proceed 
in this way: 

Q. "What did the younger son say to his father?" 
A. **Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.'* 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 205 

Q. "Where did he then take his journey?" 

A. '*Into a far country.'' 

Q. "What did he do with his substance?" 

A. ''Wasted it in riotous living.'" 

Q. "Then what would he fain have done?" 

A. ''Filled his belly with the husks,'' etc. 

The question should throw the pupil upon his own re- 
sources. It should have no guideboards in it pointing the 
way to the answer. To suggest the answers to questions 
is to foster laziness and apathy. 

Simplicity and Qearness. Long questions are to be 
avoided, and so are complicated and hazy questions. The 
pupil will need all of his mental powers to expend upon 
the problem presented, and should not be required to wrestle 
with obscureness or involved abstruseness in the structure 
of the question. Make the question clear, short, direct, and 
concise. Clearness is imperative. It should be definite, 
with an unmistakable answer. It should not be double, as, 
"Where did he go next and what did he do?" or "When and 
for what reason did Paul first go to Rome ? " It is not easy 
to frame questions that children will understand and answer 
quickly and correctly, but the art can be acquired by patient 
effort. 

The Preparation of Qtiestions* And this suggests the im- 
portant fact that no teacher can do justice to himself and 
to his subject if he depends wholly upon extempore ques- 
tions. The margins of the text-books of all effective teachers, 
whether it be in college, secular school, or Sunday school, 
are written full of hints for questions. The mere testing of 
the pupil's knowledge may seem to some to be an easy task, 
for "even a fool can ask questions." It is, indeed, a favorite 
joke with unprepared people who are suddenly called upon 
to take the places of absent teachers that all they will have to 
do will be to ask the questions; the class will do the answer- 
ing. But "a wise question," says Lord Bacon, "is the half 
of knowledge," and he who would ask wise questions must 
make wise preparation. No subject can be so simple and no 
class so elementary that the teacher need not make a study 
of his questions. According to Dr. Trumbull, " It is a matter 
of history that when Dr. Chalmers was professor of moral 



2o6 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

philosophy in Saint Andrew's University, he had a Sunday 
school of the poorer class of children in his neighborhood, and 
that he was accustomed to write out carefully the questions 
he would ask those children on the Sunday's lesson." In 
using such prepared work it will not be necessary to be con- 
fined closely to a manuscript. The question read painfully 
from book or paper loses half of its force. There should be 
seeming spontaneousness and briskness of questioning, but the 
plan should have been made carefully beforehand. The 
teacher may glance at his lesson leaf often, with its carefully 
interlined questions, but he is not slavishly to follow it. It 
has been wittily said that the best extempore work is always 
that which has been carefully prepared beforehand. No 
evidences of the preparation, however, must be in sight. 

The Qwcstions of Pttpils, The class should constantly be 
in an inquiring attitude. Questions on the part of the pupils 
should be encouraged. The class that never asks a question 
is either absorbed in other things than the lesson or else it 
is paralyzed. Imagine a class of small boys, each individual 
of which is a living interrogation point fourteen hours out of 
every twenty-four, sitting for a mortal hour with never a 
question. Something is wrong with the teacher of such a 
class. A group of boys and girls around their teacher hard 
at work over a lesson is rather noisy. Each is doing his part ; 
each is thoroughly interested and wants to know something. 
The skill of the teacher is tested as much by his handling of 
the questions which are put to him as by the questions which 
he puts to the class. Some he may dismiss with a word, others 
he may refer to the class as a whole or to some individual 
member of the class, others he may carefully answer himself. 
The stream must always be within perfect control, and must 
be wisely directed, but it should never be checked. The 
teacher must be wise. It is a favorite device with college 
boys to ask questions so as to get the professor started and 
use up the time so that no one will be called upon to recite. 
Small boys too often delight in asking smart questions or 
even impertinent ones, but this matter must be left to the 
wisdom of the teacher. 

Jesus as a Questioner. Jesus in his teaching used ques- 
tions constantly, and in every case he made his point more 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 207 

effective by means of them. His questions, like those of 
every true teacher, were largely suggestive. They set people 
to thinking for themselves. "Whom do men say that I the 
Son of man am?" "Whom say ye that I am?" "Will ye 
also go away?" "Which was neighbor unto him who fell 
among the thieves?" "What think ye of the Christ? whose 
son is he?" "The baptism of John, whence was it?" He 
examined the young lawyer in true Socratic manner. He led 
his enemies into pitfalls with all the skill of a Sophist. There 
are no better examples in all literature of the dilemma led 
up to by means of questions than those contained in Luke 20. 
1—8, and 21-26. His questions were personal and searching. 
He constantly encouraged his disciples to ask questions that 
he might draw them out and make clear to them the great 
lessons which he wished them to understand. The Sunday 
school worker should study with care the questions of the 
great Master Teacher. 

- ■ Answers. A word ' should be given concerning the treat- 
ment of answers. First of all, no answer, unless it was in- 
tended to be impertinent, should be made light of. No 
matter how foolish it may be or how far from the mark, if 
it was honestly given entertain it kindly. Very gently the 
answerer may be led to see that there is a better solution, 
but his self-respect must never be violated. To hold up a 
foolish answer for ridicule is often to silence forever the 
answerer. A good answer should be repeated by the teacher, 
but never a wrong answer. The more quickly false ideas are 
passed over the better for the class. Nothing is more con^ 
tagious than error; therefore emphasize only the truth. 
Often the answer may disclose the weakness of the question. 
To the question, "What can you tell about the Pharisees?" 
the answer came, ''Nothing'' — a correct answer, but not the 
one expected. Then, too, answers may disclose the mental 
condition of the pupil, or his wrong methods of study. The 
teacher should be as alert for wrong answers as for right ones, 
and should not leave the point until he has found the source 
of the error. 



CHAPTER XXXII 
THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY 

Biblical Geography* It is not possible to suggest specific 
methods for the teaching of each separate subject required 
in the Sunday school curriculum. One or two subjects, how- 
ever, need special attention. The subject of biblical geog- 
raphy, so vital in its connection with Bible study work, is 
more often neglected than any other. It is taught ade- 
quately in few schools, yet no subject solves so many diffi- 
culties as this and none furnishes the basis of more valu- 
able training. From it can come material for utilizing the 
motor activities of the restless boys' and girls' classes, and 
for giving interesting variety to the exercises of the whole 
school. 

Without systematic courses in biblical geography the 
instruction becomes unreal and lifeless. The region in which 
the Bible stories are laid is in many minds as unreal and 
vague as are those of Jack and the Beanstalk, and Alice in 
Wonderland, and the Arabian Nights. The lessons are not 
alive and real; the stories and the personalities do not stand 
out against an actual physical background. Not many, for 
instance, can follow the life of David on the map of Palestine, 
or form correct mental pictures of the scenes of his exploits. 
Such a result is to be deplored. A Sunday school pupil who 
has been a regular attendant for several years should at 
least know minutely the map of Palestine. It is a very small 
territory, but a full knowledge of it is a knowledge at the 
same time of a large portion of the Bible. The victory of 
Deborah, the feeding of Elijah, the exploit of Jonathan, the 
slaying of Goliath, the death of Saul, the deeds of Samson, 
and the like should suggest instantly to the pupil places upon 
the map. The journeys of Jesus and of Paul should be so 
thoroughly known in connection with the map that they will 
stand out vivid and real. 

Physical Geography* Geography should be begun in the 
208 



THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY 209 

Junior Department with pupils after the age of nine, and 
the first teaching should concern itself with the physical 
contour, the elevations and general outline of Palestine. 
This is the time to begin map modeling either with pulp, clay, 
putty, or sand. The making of the map gives the child some- 
thing to do; it satisfies nature's demand for activity; and it 
brings the desired knowledge through actual contact with 
concrete things. The boy or girl who makes mountains and 
valleys and rivers and lakes will understand the region he is 
working with as he could through no amount of mere map 
study or even map drawing. 

A little study of Palestine will disclose several very helpful 
facts. The great landmarks are Mount Carmel, extending 
like a shoulder into the Mediterranean ; Mount Hermon in the 
extreme north; the Sea of Galilee; the Dead Sea; Ebal and 
Gerizim; and the plain of Esdraelon. Mount Ebal lies al- 
most in the center; Mount Carmel is two thirds the distance 
from north to south on the coast ; the Sea of Galilee is directly 
opposite Carmel; from the southern end of the Dead Sea to 
Lake Merom on the north is three times the length of the 
Dead Sea; from the head of the Dead Sea to the foot of the 
Sea of Gc.lilee is one and one half times the length of the 
Dead Sea. The Dead Sea can thus be used as a unit of 
measure. It is forty-six miles long and ten wide. The 
length of Palestine is about one hundred and eighty miles. 
The Jordan is twenty-five miles from the coast of Sidon. The 
Jordan, measuring in a direct line, is one hundred and thirty- 
four miles long; the Sea of Galilee is fourteen miles long; the 
Maritime plain is from eight to twenty miles wide; the Jordan 
valley is from two to fourteen miles wide. Distances should 
be carefully given in local equivalents that will be thoroughly 
understood. Palestine embraced an area of about twelve 
thousand square miles, which is about the area of Massa- 
chusetts and Connecticut. By consulting a geography one 
can compare this with other States. Distances, like the 
journey of Jesus from Nazareth to Jerusalem, or from Jeru- 
salem to Sychar, should be made concrete by being trans- 
lated into distances near the pupil's home. The time that it 
would take to walk the distance could be computed. If the 
pupil is taught early to be careful of his distances, he will 



210 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

later be able as in no other way to appreciate the journeys 
of the patriarchs and of Jesus. 

Interpretation of the Map. Work with the contour map 
is valuable for all classes. Not until one realizes fully the 
physical condition of the country can one understand fully 
much of biblical history. Why were the northern tribes so 
early swept into captivity while Judah held out? One has 
but to look at the mountains about Jerusalem. Why was the 
plain of Esdraelon from the very earliest years the battle- 
field of Palestine? A glance at the raised map shows that 
with its radiating valleys it was the only place that could be 
approached with chariots or where they could be driven 
about freely. Why was Jericho so quickly captured and 
Hebron so long in the taking? One has but to look at the 
map. Why did the old caravan route from the east to Egypt 
take the course that it did? Why did it wind so far to the 
north? One has but to glance at the mountain ranges and 
the fearful depression of the Jordan valley. A look at 
Hermon and Mount Lebanon, nine and ten thousand feet in 
elevation respectively, will give a new idea of the transfigura- 
tion. Mount Washington, the highest elevation in the United 
States east of the Mississippi, is only about six thousand feet 
high. What did it mean for the family of Jesus to go from 
Nazareth to Jerusalem on foot? Brought up at Nazareth, 
with what physical features of Palestine would Jesus be 
intimately familiar? Why was Jesus thirsty when he arrived 
at the well in Samaria? Why did Jesus remove from isolated 
Nazareth to Capernaum on the great eastern trade route? 
Such questions bring the pupil into very vivid and vital con- 
tact with the Bible story. 

Maps. Every Sunday school should have at least one good 
wall map, and it should be used constantly by the teachers 
and by the superintendent in his review of the lesson. There 
should be smaller maps for class use, and outline maps to be 
traced and filled in by the younger pupils. How can one 
-know, for instance, the book of Acts without a map con- 
stantly in hand? Most of the older members of the school 
have most excellent maps in their Bibles, and these should 
be made use of. It would be well if each class had a small 
raised map of its own into which pins could be placed each 



THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY 211 

Sabbath to indicate the place studied about. The move- 
ments of David or Paul or Jesus can be traced in this way. 
Each member of the class can have an outline map upon 
which the progress of events can be marked from Sabbath 
to Sabbath. A little review of this map at the opening of 
the hour will fix the lessons in mind as nothing else could do. 

Advanced Geography. Adult classes can carry the subject 
of geography into many fascinating directions. There is 
geological geography — a study of rocks and soils and min- 
erals, their distribution and their influence upon the ancient 
nations. There is commercial geography — a study of the 
great highways of Palestine, the great arteries between the 
East and the West. "In connection with the missionary 
journeys of Saint Paul," writes Professor Kent, "note how 
he followed the lines of the world's commerce. In the map 
of his journeys you have the map of commercial enterprise 
on the eastern Mediterranean. " There is racial geography — 
the tracing of the original habitats of peoples, and their 
migrations, those great tides of humanity which have ever 
swept westward and left their deposits over the whole map 
of the westward world. And there is historical geography — ■ 
the changing of boundaries and locations with the changing 
of nations and of governments. The biblical student should 
have broad views. The time for the narrow, unscientific 
study of the Bible as a storehouse of mere texts is long since 
gone by. "The geography of the lands which molded the 
people of the Bible," says Kent, "which determined to a 
great extent their character, which reveal many of the mo- 
tives and forces which, in the end, molded their life, their 
history, their thought, and their faith, is the most illuminating 
and fascinating commentary upon his Word which God has 
placed in our hands. " 

Missionary Geography. Sunday schools which are strong in 
their missionary work often do something toward teaching 
their pupils the geography of missionary lands. There is no 
need of going into this work exhaustively. It is a subject for 
the secular schools, but it must not be neglected. Those 
schools which have monthly missionary meetings, as, indeed, 
those which have weekly exercises, should set aside a fraction 
of the time for a study of the map. The work should be 



212 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

made a concrete reality. Whenever a missionary report is 
read it should always be in connection with the map. Maps 
of China, India, Africa, the Philippines, and other missionary 
fields should be, as far as possible, a part of the equipment 
of every school. 

The Library. Finally, the library should be supplied with 
good books of geographical reference. Here should be the 
source of the superintendent's information for his weekly 
talks, and of the teacher's equipment for map-making and 
explanation. The pupils should become acquainted with the 
best and most recent works on all subjects pertaining to 
biblical geography. The teachers should get them to refer 
constantly to these works, should have them take the books 
home to make abstracts from them and to copy maps. No 
Sunday school can afford to economize at this point. If 
possible, each library should have as a nucleus a good Bible 
dictionary, G. A. Smith's Historical Geography of the Holy 
Land, Harper's The Bible and Modern Discoveries, Hender- 
son's Palestine with Maps, Whitney's Handbook of Bible 
Geography, Hurlbut and Vincent's Manual of Bible Geog- 
raphy, MacCoun's The Holy Land in Geography and History, 
and Thomson's The Land and the Book. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 
THE TEACHING OF MISSIONS 

The Place of Missions, Missions are the seminar work of 
the Sunday school; they stand for the doing side of biblical 
education; they are the lesson translated into daily living. 
One may study the Scriptures long as a mere branch of 
knowledge ; he may be an encyclopedia of biblical names and 
places and events; he may be a perfect geography of the Holy 
Land, and be profound in doctrines, in ethics, and in religious 
philosophy — yet all of it may profit him really nothing. 
Teaching, as we have seen, is valuable only as it leads to 
action, and Sunday school teaching translated into action 
becomes missions — for in the broadest sense a missionary is 
anyone who is sent out anywhere to enlighten others concern- 
ing the truth as it is in Jesus. It may be the little boy who 
is sent in the Master's name with a bouquet of flowers for a 
sick-room; it may be the little girl who goes out of her way 
to bring another to Sunday school. It includes also the send- 
ing out of pennies and dimes and dollars, of clothing and 
other necessaries to the poor, of home department literature, 
and the like. No Sunday school is truly alive unless it is a 
missionary school. If it is only teaching and not practicing, 
if its efforts result in no action for others, it is merely a place 
for biblical scholasticism. The aim of the Sunday school 
should be to teach pupils to apply the Bible to their everyday 
living, and to go to others or to send to others, that they may 
share the glad tidings of the gospel. 

The Sttbject-Matter of Missions is fivefold. First, it in- 
cludes a study of the missonary parts of the Bible. The book 
of Acts is the first chapter in the history of Christian missions. 
There must be studied, too, the words of Jesus concerning the 
matter, and also the spirit of his teaching. Then parts of 
Paul's letters are of exceeding value as showing the under- 
lying purpose of the life that he led, as, for example, the 

213 



214 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

second chapter of Ephesians. The Old Testament, too, has 
its missionary lessons : Psalms 121 and 135 encouraged Living- 
stone, and the words of Psalm 62. 5-8 were written on a rock 
by Gardiner and hi§ companions just before they died of 
starvation in Patagonia. Second, the study of missions in- 
cludes a study of the underlying principles of Christianity, 
Altruism, unselfishness, sacrifice of self for others, the desire 
to make others happy — all this should be taught constantly 
in every Sunday school class, and it is true missionary teach- 
ing. The third class of material for missionary study con- 
sists of the history and the biography of the subject. There 
is no more thrilling a,nd inspiring chapter in modern history 
than that recounting the opening of the sea islands, India, 
Africa, Burma, Japan, China^ to the gospel. Biographies of 
such heroes as Livingstone, Judson, Butler, Paton, Taylor, 
Carey, Neesima, should be studied in the Sunday school. 
The fourth class of material consists of everything which may 
have to do with missionary lands: the geographical facts, 
customs of the people, methods of work and modes of living, 
the religious ideals and ceremonies and the like. The fifth 
class <)f material is the organization and administration of the 
various missionary bodies, and indeed the whole practical side 
of modern missionary effort. This last may be studied 
profitably by adult classes. 

Methods of Stady. As to the tirne to be given by the 
Sunday school to missionary study there are many opinions. 
Some schools give the subject over to an evening class of 
volunteers, others have a missionary service periodically, 
others set apart a few moments of every Sunday school 
session for the subject, others disregard it altogether. There 
is a corresponding variety in the methods of presenting the 
subject. Some teach it solely by means of addresses de- 
livered to the whole school, others teach it as a special sub- 
ject to a special class organized for the purpose, others have 
as their chief object an arousing of interest in the matter in 
order to increase the missionary collection. One thing, how- 
ever, is sure : missions in their manifold phases are so impor- 
tant a part of Sunday school work that they should be 
studied systematically and continually. It is not too much 
to insist that in some way they should form a part of every 



THE TEACHING OF MISSIONS 215 

Sunday's lesson. Teachers should make themselves familiar 
with missionary literature issued by the Young People's 
Missionary Movement, the offices of which are at 156 Fifth 
Avenue, New York City. 

Teaching Missions to Children. With the beginners and 
with the Primary Department it is best not to teach much 
of missions directly. Children below the age of eight have 
very hazy notions about geography and history and degrees 
of civilization. It is better not to have them give up their 
regtilar work to hear missionary addresses and reports which 
are given to the whole school. For the child proper mission- 
ary training consists in the forming of attitudes of mind and 
habits of thinking and doing. During the golden years be- 
tween three and eight the child should be taught the lesson 
of unselfishness, the joy of giving and of working for others, 
the duty of service, and the meaning of sympathy. This is 
the foundation of all mission work. The doing side of the 
work must constantly be dwelt upon. The child, as we have 
already shown, must be thoroughly impressed with the idea 
that the Sunday school leads all of its pupils to do some- 
thing. When they go home they are to be more kind, more 
obedient, more helpful, more cheerful, and all for the sake of 
others. They are to try to get others to come that they in 
turn may be made more useful and obedient. They are to 
bring what money they can that it may be sent to people who 
have no Sunday schools to go to. Simple missionary stories 
may be told to illustrate helpfulness in all its phases, giving, 
self-sacrifice, and the like. The child who comes from the 
Primary Department should have a real missionary habit of 
mind, though he may know almost nothing about actual 
missions. He should already have himself done consid- 
erable missionary work, inasmuch as he has been sent to 
bring others into the school, has carried flowers to the 
sick, has tried to earn his own missionary money, and has 
sought to make himself helpful in many ways to those 
about him. 

The Junior Department. Children between the ages of 
nine and twelve are ready and eager to learn of missionary 
lands and peoples. Costumes, flags, weapons, customs, 
curios, idols interest them greatly. They are ready for 



2i6 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

missionary geography and history. It is the reading age, and 
the teacher should see to it that such books as are given on 
page 190 of Trull's Manual of Missionary Methods should be 
furnished in abundance. The pre-adolescent loves action and 
adventure. Selections from the lives of the great mission- 
aries like Livingstone and Paton should be read to him. 
His motor activities should be brought into action. He 
should be permitted to do for others all that is in his power 
to do. His is the messenger service of the school. It is his 
duty to distribute books and papers, to run errands for the 
superintendent, to serve as guide to strangers, to carry 
flowers and baskets to the sick, and always he should feel 
that he is helping in a way that only he can help. He should, 
in other words, be taught to feel the joy of helping others. 
Some schools have found it a valuable exercise to have this 
class prepare scrapbooks of missionary material. The making 
of maps, the modeling of geographical outlines in sand or 
pulp, are also valuable exercises for this grade. Class and 
race prejudice should now be worked against. Then, too, the 
junior should know thoroughly what becomes of his mission- 
ary money, and should have a pretty accurate idea of the 
portions of the world where missionary effort is now being 
centered. 

The Intermediate Department* With the adolescent pupil 
the first strong appeal can be made for the spiritual side of 
missionary effort. The heroism and self-sacrifice of the great 
missionaries can be dwelt upon now with effect. It is the 
hero age. A life like that of Dr. Grenfell or Dr. Judson is 
appreciated now at its true value. The teacher should dwell 
upon the Christ love within these men that impelled them 
seemingly to sacrifice every worldly advantage in order that 
they might help the weak and degraded, and he should dwell 
upon their exceeding great reward. Many a Sunday school 
pupil has heard within his soul the first call to the higher 
life while he was being told of the sacrifice and the rewards 
of the great heroes of the cross. The teacher should see to 
it that missionary biography of the most inspiring kind is 
furnished to this class. Books like Uganda's White Man of 
Work and the biography of Paton, the missionary to the New 
Hebrides, hold adolescents like fiction. Mission bands can be 



THE TEACHING OF MISSIONS 217 

organized and missionary concerts prepared by this class. 
The whole emphasis now should be upon the character side 
of missions, the beauty, the sweetness, the joy of self-sur- 
render, and the devotion to the service of others, for Christ's 
sake, of all that life holds dear. 

The Senior Department* With later adolescence comes the 
climax of missionary teaching. Now comes the final flower 
of Christian altruism. The doing of this period should take 
the form of visits to the sick and the afflicted, of help to poor 
little children, of practical work among the outcasts and the 
wretched. The call can be made now for volunteers for the 
mission field. The teaching should dwell on the sweetness 
and beauty of the Christ life, on his self-effacement, his pity 
and tenderness, on the beautiful lives of the heroes who have 
dwelt for their Master's sake in the dark lands. Prayer 
circles for missions may now be organized, and study classes 
where the field may be examined and the points of greatest 
need determined. If the school is organized as a missionary 
society, many of its officers and committee members should 
be drawn from this department. 

The Motor Side of the Sttnday SchooL Thus missions are 
the motor side of the Sunday school. They are indeed the 
finished product which the school was established to turn 
out. It should be the aim of every teacher so to present his 
work from Sabbath to Sabbath that each member of his class 
may be constantly increasing in effectiveness as a doer of 
the Word. 

Missions as a Sottrce of Illustration* There is another 
valuable side to the study of missions: they increase one's 
teaching material. There is no field outside of the Bible 
where one can gather such effective illustrations. Thousands 
of passages of Scripture are associated with missionary lives. 
It comes with power when one can say, "Neesima, and with 
him Japan, was won to Christ by Gen. i. i and John 3. 16"; 
or, "On the morning Livingstone left Scotland for Africa 
Psalms 135 and 121 were read at his home at Blantyre." 
Nowhere in all literature can be found such stories of God's 
providence and guidance and mercy and protection and 
tender helpfulness as in the lives of missionaries, and no- 
where can be found more moving instances of self-surrender, 



2i8 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

heroism, courage, character, perseverance, and faithfulness 
unto death. 

Missionary Giving. Once teach the spirit of missions and 
the giving will take care of itself. There is no need of devices 
and sensational appeals for money if a school has been put 
by careful and long-continued effort into the right missionary 
attitude. Giving is one of the fruits of Sunday school 
effort; indeed, some would consider it almost the only fruit. 
The giving of money is only one phase of the matter. The 
pupil is to be taught to give first himself: his love, his time, 
his activity, his best behavior, his obedience, his gifts that 
God has given him; then he is to give, as far as he is able, 
of his substance which God has loaned to him. From the 
earliest primary years this should be made to the child to 
appear as a privilege. He should not be taught to bring a 
penny merely and so lay the foundation of the penny habit 
for life, but he should be taught to bring all that he can 
afford, not as a hard duty but as a joyful service. He should 
know what becomes of his money. The primary teacher, by 
a simple story, can tell of the poor little Chinese girl who has 
no beautiful Sunday school, and no teacher, but who, through 
the money of the primary class, now can have them. The 
habit of joyous giving of money for the good of others is one 
of the most helpful of all the habits which can be formed in 
the Sunday school. 

. A Missionary C«rric«I«m* In the lower grades, as we have 
seen, the aim of instruction is simply "to develop missionary 
attitudes and habits," In the Junior Department a little 
text-book may be introduced for supplementary work. The 
Missionary Chain, and Japan for Juniors are excellent. With 
only five minutes a week, or even with half an hour each 
month, much may be done. The Intermediate Department 
may study such a book as Bradner's The Kingdom Growing, 
and the Senior Department may be given a short course in 
such books as De Forest's Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdom, 
and Smith's The Uplift of China. These little studies need 
not interfere with the regular Sunday school work. They 
should come as a diversion. They should, however, form 
only a part of the missionary work of the school. Every 
International Lesson should be searched for its missionary 



THE TEACHING OF MISSIONS 219 

bearing, and the whole aim of the teacher should be to create 
in every pupil the real missionary spirit, the desire to go 
out and be helpful to others. This is the motor side of 
Sunday school work and it is the really vital side. In 
the Graded Lessons we are to have systematic instruction in 
missions, a thing not_ possible under the system of Uniform 
Lessons. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 
THE USE OF REVIEW 

The Importance of Review. By many Sunday school 
teachers the quarterly review is looked forward to with 
apprehension. They would far rather teach a regular lesson. 
Some turn back to the opening of the quarter and teach the 
lessons over again (as far as time will permit), often getting 
no farther than the third or fourth lesson. Some schools 
expect the entire teaching period to be taken up by the 
superintendent, who is supposed to preach a sermon on the 
series. Some quarterlies have an optional lesson that may be 
taken in place of the review, and some schools even give 
over the period to the missionary superintendent for his 
monthly service. All of this is wrong. The review lesson is 
the most important one of the quarter, and it is the one that 
requires the most careful preparation and the greatest skill 
in presentation. This, however, does not mean that the 
quarterly review is the only review the class is to have- 
Every Sunday is a review Sunday. The skillful teacher be- 
gins always with review. One eminent authority estimates 
that one third of every lesson period should be devoted to 
review; another would use even one half. The motto of the 
thorough teacher is, Review, review, always review. 

Reasons for Review. Reviews are valuable for three 
reasons: i. The process of repetition aids the memory; 2. 
The consideration at every recitation of new material in 
connection with the old assures always a firm foundation to 
build upon and brings a more complete comprehension both 
of old and new; and, 3. A final reconsideration of the whole 
subject at the close of the lessons enables the student to- 
grasp it all as a single unit rather than as a series of isolated 
parts. 

Repetition. We have already seen how memory images 
are brightened by repetition. The schoolboy learns his 
declamation by going over it again and again. Jesus im- 

220 



THE USE OF REVIEW 221 

pressed one lesson forever upon Peter's mind by asking him 
three times the same question: "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest 
thou me?" To review the last lesson is to fix it in the 
pupil's memory. He may have been inattentive at some 
point, or he may not have been much impressed by some of 
the details. The review deepens the impression. Repeti- 
tion, however, does not mean a mere lifeless going over of 
the same words and phrases. "A machine," says Gregory, 
"may repeat a process, but only an inteUigent agent can 
review it. The repetition done by a machine is a second 
movement precisely like the first; a repetition by the mind 
is the rethinking of a thought." It is often helpful, espe- 
cially with younger classes, to have the teacher designate 
some one to retell the story of the preceding lesson, and 
then to have others in turn add details which he has left 
out. A teacher who is working by the lecture method and 
requiring his class to take notes should always begin by hav- 
ing some one read his notes of the last lecture. The repe- 
tition fixes the material in the minds of all the class. This, 
however, is only the first element of review. 

The Lesson Approach. Herbart's first step requires that 
nothing new shall be given unless the way has been prepared 
for it. The new must be a building on to something which 
the pupil has previously mastered. In Sunday school teach- 
ng, as indeed in all kinds of teaching, this first step will 
involve a reconsideration of the previous lesson. All too 
^many teachers teach each lesson as an unrelated fragment, 
and each Sunday's portion as if it were complete in itself. 
But lessons are cumulative. A whole quarter, for instance, 
is given to the career of David. A whole year is given to 
the book of Acts. Each lesson builds upon the last, and 
therefore the last lesson should be revived. There will be no 
need of minute treatment now. Only main heads and vital 
lessons are to be touched upon, but the trend of the series 
should be marked, and the points should be selected which 
will make clear the lesson of the day. It is often a valuable 
exercise to have the class tell briefly the essential facts of 
several lessons in review. Then there should be a brief 
summing up at the close of the lesson. Especially with 
younger classes it is a valuable exercise to have one pupil 



222 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

do this in his own words. Thus teaching becomes a con- 
tinuous process of advancing from the known to the un- 
known, of building the new upon foundations already laid 
and then tested. 

The Quarterly Review, The end of a quarter marks the 
completion of one phase of the subject. The lessons, if they 
have been well chosen, center about one great central truth. 
The class, as it were, has been examining the territory 
section by section; now it is lifted up to where it can see all 
of it at a glance. One may explore an intricate, winding 
mountain lake; he may get acquainted with this little bay, 
and that long point, and that irregular island, and so on, and 
yet he may have little conception of the lake as a whole 
until he ascends a near mountain from which it is seen as 
a unit. One quarter's lessons consisted of incidents in the 
life of Jesus as recorded by John. The central truth was the 
central truth indeed of the whole book of John: "These 
things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the 
Christ, the Son of God. " To review the work, every lesson 
of the quarter should be examined in the light of this text. 
The material will then become not a mere collection of parts, 
but one homogeneous unit. Then should come the con- 
centrated personal application. Why have three months of 
careful study been given to prove "that Jesus is the Christ, 
the Son of God " ? The answer is in the completion of the 
text: "That believing ye might have life through his name." 
The quarterly review should be a gathering up of all the 
lessons into one concentrated truth, and then the application 
of that truth with power to every individual life in the class. 
Review day should be the most deeply spiritual day of the 
whole quarter. 

"With Chalk and PenciL The blackboard can be used to 
advantage as an aid to review. The eye message will supple- 
ment the ear message and make it more surely remembered. 
The eleven or twelve lesson titles can be written down that 
the quarter may be seen at a sweep of the eye. Then the 
first letters of the various Golden Texts may be added. Each 
pupil of a junior class may be asked to bring pencil and 
paper, and all may be required to write the names of the 
persons mentioned in the lessons, then of the places. A 



THE USE OF REVIEW 223 

class may be given as a review of their map drawing the 
task of making a map illustrating the quarter's lessons. With 
the younger classes there should always be variety in the 
matter of review. Every avenue of approach to the child's 
heart and mind should be made use of. The real teacher is 
original. He studies his pupils as much as he does his 
lesson, and he makes use of all legitimate devices. 

"Written Examinations. Written examinations are just as 
valuable in the Sunday school as they are in the secular 
school. A class, especially a mature class, that has done 
faithful work for three months should be tested, and the test 
should be a far more thorough one than can be given orally. 
The teacher who conducts an oral review is always in danger 
of talking too much. Each pupil should have a chance to 
answer all the questions. The average class will welcome 
this chance. They will work in preparation for the test with 
a zeal that nothing else could bring. They should have 
something tangible to show for their three months* study. 
The papers should be corrected and graded and handed back. 
In the smaller classes certificates should be given, and the 
examination results should perhaps be made the basis for 
promotion. It has often been found helpful to give the class 
a list of questions the week before and to have the answers 
brought in in as complete a form as possible. Questions can 
be asked requiring considerable research, and the best paper 
can be determined upon and later read to the class. A 
teacher who has never tried written work with his class will 
be surprised at the interest it will create and the results it 
will bring forth. Everything, however, depends upon the 
class. Some pupils would not go were examinations re- 
quired, and some classes would resent bitterly anything that 
would throw too much attention upon the individual student. 
The teacher must study his class and be guided by common 
sense. 

The Test of Teaching. Finally, reviews furnish the best 
possible test of a teacher's work. Says Dr. Trumbull, "Most 
teachers would be surprised at finding, by any fair testing of 
their work, how little, comparatively, has been gained by 
their scholars, or rather how much which they supposed they 
had made clear has been missed by their scholars, in any 



224 ELEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY 

lesson, or in any series of lessons, of their teaching. " Then 
he tells of the teacher in a Junior Department who was deal- 
ing with the story of Elijah and Ahab. "Graphically and 
vividly she pictured in simple language the appearance of 
Ahab and Elijah, explaining at every point the characteristics 
and relative positions and circumstances of Ahab, the idol- 
atrous king of Israel, and of Elijah, the rugged and cour- 
ageous prophet of Jehovah. The children listened as for 
their lives. They were all attention. " At the close, address- 
ing the most intelligent and attentive of the class, she asked, 
"'Now to see what you remember of what I have told you. 
Who was this Ahab ?' The child's answer came back promptly, 
'God.' " Such experiences are good for a teacher. He who 
suspects that he talks too much when he gets before his 
class should pause often and ask questions in review. The 
pupil's attainment is marked not by what he hears, not by 
what he has had given to him, but by what he can give back. 
There is no way of being sure of what he is receiving but by 
constant testing. It is in this way that the teacher studies 
his class and at the same time studies the effectiveness of 
his own methods. As we have already said, the motto of 
the conscientious and thoroughgoing teacher is, Review^ 
review, evermore review. 



OCT 9 1909 



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